allegedly burnt by her teacher. Following Hopley's release from prison, he became immediately embroiled in a sensationalised divorce trial. His wife, Fanny, had petitioned for divorce on the grounds that he was "unloving" and had mistreated her. She claimed that Hopley had married her as an "educational experiment", presenting Hopley's educational theories as evidence of his "lunacy". She had been 18 years old to Hopley's 36 at the time of their marriage in 1855. According to her statements during the trial, Hopley frequently criticised her writing and insisted that the couple's three children should be raised as "second Christs". She accused him of physically abusing her from the time of her first pregnancy, beating their first child only days after its birth (the child was later found to be "brain-damaged"), and suggesting that during his prison sentence she should be confined to a workhouse. Hopley responded by claiming that he set rules only to ensure the maintenance of his household and the wellbeing of his family, and produced a set of romantic letters he had received from Fanny during his incarceration as evidence of her unforced affection for him. The jury found Hopley guilty of cruelty in July 1864, but suggested that Fanny had condoned his treatment of her. The judge therefore ruled that her case was insufficient to grant a divorce. The verdict sparked outrage among the public, who believed that "a great injustice had been done", and that Fanny should not be forced to remain married to an abusive convicted killer. Fanny left England shortly afterwards, allegedly to avoid having to continue living with Hopley. Hopley largely withdrew from the public eye after the trial, becoming a private tutor in London and publishing pamphlets on spiritualism in the late 1860s. He died at University College Hospital on 24 June 1876. A retrospective editorial published in The Times in 1960 concluded that Hopley was not "the villain which some persons pictured him to be"; it noted that at the time of his arrest Hopley had been planning the construction of a "model school" in Brighton and that he had examined architect's drawings of the school after beating Cancellor. In 1865, Cancellor's death was used in a medical journal article discussing adult hydrocephalus. Despite Willis's statement that Cancellor had no pre-existing medical condition that would have caused or contributed to his death, author Samuel Wilks suggested not only that Cancellor