Plot
Based on the Tichborne case, the film is set in the late 19th century. The film concerns a claimant to the Tichborne Baronetcy.
Lord Tichborne, the ninth-richest nobleman in England, disappears after a South American shipwreck. Some years later his erudite Afro-English valet, Bogle, is sent to investigate rumors that Tichborne survived and settled in Australia. An alcoholic ruffian answers Bogle's inquiries, claiming to be the lost heir. Bogle suspects fraud, but conspires with the claimant to split the inheritance should the latter successfully pass himself off to friends, family and the courts. As the claimant returns to England to continue his charade, enough people confirm his identity to make both the claimant and Bogle believe that he just might be the rightful heir after all.
Anne de Mortimer was a medieval English noblewoman who became an ancestor to the royal House of York, one of the parties in the fifteenth-century dynastic Wars of the Roses. It was her line of descent which gave the Yorkist dynasty its claim to the throne. Anne was the mother of Richard, Duke of York, and thus grandmother of kings Edward IV and Richard III, and great-grandmother of Edward V.
The Tichborne case was a legal cause célèbre that fascinated Victorian Britain in the 1860s and 1870s. It concerned the claims by a man sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. He failed to convince the courts, was convicted of perjury and served a 14-year prison sentence.
When the crown of Scotland became vacant in September 1290 on the death of the seven-year-old Queen Margaret, 13 claimants to the throne came forward. Those with the most credible claims were John Balliol; Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale ; John Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings; and Floris V, Count of Holland.
Tichborne is a village and civil parish 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Winchester in Hampshire, England.
Robert V de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale, was a feudal lord, justice and constable of Scotland and England, a regent of Scotland, and a competitor for the Scottish throne in 1290/92 in the Great Cause. He is commonly known as "Robert the Competitor". His grandson Robert the Bruce eventually became King of Scots.
Arthur Orton was an English man who has generally been identified by legal historians and commentators as the "Tichborne Claimant", who in two celebrated court cases both fascinated and shocked Victorian society in the 1860s and 1870s.
Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn, 12th Baronet was a British jurist and politician who served as the Lord Chief Justice for 21 years. He heard some of the leading causes célèbres of the nineteenth century.
The Tichborne Dole is a traditional English festival of charity which is held in the village of Tichborne, Hampshire, during the Feast of the Annunciation. The festival is centered on the handing out of donations of flour, which have been blessed by the local parish priest, from the front of Tichborne House.
There have been nine baronetcies created for persons with the surname Moore, two in the Baronetage of England, one in the Baronetage of Ireland, two in the Baronetage of Great Britain and four in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. As of 2014 two creations are extant and one is considered dormant.
Peers of the Realm have been associated with Australia since early in its history as a British settlement. Many peers served as governors of the Australian colonies, and in the days when the practice of appointing British governors-general was current, the great majority were peers.
In Search of the Castaways is a 1962 American adventure film starring Maurice Chevalier and Hayley Mills in a tale about a worldwide search for a shipwrecked sea captain. The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Robert Stevenson from a screenplay by Lowell S. Hawley, based upon Jules Verne's 1868 adventure novel Captain Grant's Children.
There have been two baronetcies created for persons with the surname Tichborne, both in the Baronetage of England. Both creations are extinct.
Thomas Christopher Banks (1765–1854), who for a while styled himself by the bogus title "Sir T.C. Banks, Baronet of Nova Scotia", was a British genealogist and lawyer. He is notorious for having assisted several claimants to dormant peerages, based on the very flimsiest evidence, which he strengthened with imaginary pedigrees. During his later years, he resided near Ripon, Yorkshire.
Charles Chapman Barber was an English barrister and judge.
The Tichborne Affair is a 1977 Australian television film directed by Carl Schultz and starring Hugh Keays-Byrne, Neil Fitzpatrick, and Ken Goodlet. It is based on the Tichborne case.
William Cresswell, was an inmate of the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum, in New South Wales who was considered as a claimant in the Tichborne case.
Theresa Mary Doughty Tichborne or Orton (1866–1939) was the daughter of Arthur Orton, a claimant in the 19th century Tichborne case, who continued her father's claim into the 1920s.
Sir Henry Tichborne, 3rd Baronet was a Hampshire landowner and Roman Catholic baronet of the later Stuart period.
Henry Tichborne was the 7th Baronet Tichborne of Tichborne in Hampshire.
The Fraud is a historical novel based on the Tichborne case written by Zadie Smith and published by Penguin Random House in 2023.
