Is Sweeney Todd based on real life events?

Crime historian Peter Haining, who ploughed through the available evidence for 25 years before writing Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street in 1993, believes so. read more

The full history is on the book: "Sweeney Todd: The Real Story Of The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street", by Peter Haining. read more

Sweeney Todd was born on October 26, 1756, in Brick Lane. The house in which the child first breathed the fetid air of the East London slums is not known, but it was probably near Spitalfields. His troubled, violent early life mirrors that of more recent killers. Todd's mother, not 20, scratched a living winding silk. read more

Claims that Sweeney Todd was a real person were first made in the introduction to the 1850 (expanded) edition of The String of Pearls and have persisted to the present day. In two books, Peter Haining argued that Sweeney Todd was a historical figure who committed his crimes around 1800. read more