Like everyone else, Wiseman got his moment to speak in his own defence. ‘After I brought that lighter up, I left her, I did not see her afterwards; I meant to come to her at high water; I left her when…I heard there was such a piece of work about her, I was afraid to come back; Mr Lucas knows no lighter upon the river could come to her.’

My great-great-great grandfather’s voice, speaking directly across nearly two centuries! The actual phrases he used! And all those others: Lucas with his pompous rehearsed account, Rowey rattling off something as if learned off by heart, Ned whining his excuses. They leaped off the page, these people— their words, their tone! They crowded around me, their voices singing out clearly into my ear, indignant or strident or pleading.

It was as if I’d opened the bronze doors under the classical pediment and released a crowd of people into the demure Mitchell Library: shouting and sweating, galloping along the floors, insisting on having their say.

The prisoner called seven witnesses who gave him a good character, but the verdict was Guilty and the sentence was Death.

When I’d finished reading Solomon’s trial, I sat for a long time in front of the machine. The yellow light poured down onto the screen, an island of light in the darkened microfilm corner. I felt as if I’d just seen a snake or narrowly avoided being run over: in shock.

He was so alive, a person frightened of death, flustered by the court so that his Prisoner’s Defence came out in a muddle. I could hear him breathe, feel the heat of his body as he stood in the dock of the Old Bailey.

In an hour I’d learned more about him than Mum had ever known. I’d burst out of the sealed capsule of the story she’d so carefully transmitted. I was on my own now: on my own, with this man I hardly knew.

I had a huge hunger to know more. What sort of life did he have in London? Why did he steal when he knew the consequence? Was he desperate, or greedy?

I decided to spend some time on the internet. The Mormons—for whom genealogy is important—have a massive database of births, deaths and marriages. It’s all online: you type in a name and a date and, bingo, there’s your ancestor.

The name was easy. The date wasn’t quite so certain: at the trial his age was given as thirty, but I thought this might have been approximate, so I searched a few years either side.

It was a shock to find twenty-nine Solomon Wisemans. I decided to ignore the ones not born in London (although my Solomon Wiseman might not have been born there) and weeded out the repetitions. Even when I’d done that, there were still seven.

I printed out the search results and began to study them.

Several Soloman Wisemans were born—in different years—in Bermondsey. Several had parents called William and Elizabeth, one had parents called William and Catherine. One had parents called Richard and Jane. Two were born—in different years—in Bermondsey and had a spouse called Jane. One was born in Essex and had a spouse called Jane. One was christened at St Mary Mounthaw, wherever that was, another at St Mary Somerset. One record asserted that Solomon Wiseman had married Jane Middleton at Spitalfields Christ Church in 1799. Another gave him an address—Butler’s Buildings, Bermondsey—and a son baptised at St Mary Magdalene, Southwark.