ABC Australia and CBC
22 episodes listed below
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Throughout its reign, the British Empire stole a lot of stuff. Today the Empire's loot sits in museums, galleries, private collections and burial sites with polite plaques. But its history is often messier than the plaques suggest. In each episode of this global smash hit podcast, Walkley award-winning journalist, author and genetic potluck, Marc Fennell, takes you on the wild, evocative, sometimes funny, often tragic adventure of how these stolen treasures got to where they live today. These objects will ultimately help us see the modern world — and ourselves — in a different light. This is a co-production between the ABC and...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
By following displaced objects and contested accounts, the show makes empire's material legacy concrete, personal and open to scrutiny.
Stuff The British Stole treats displaced objects as evidence, following their routes through conquest, collecting, inheritance and modern arguments over return.
A mummy's head in a school library: your museum-label skepticism has found its podcast.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A dog story opens onto conquest, torture, and the human cost behind an expected surrender.
An adorable dog becomes the unlikely doorway into imperial history, as the episode follows how a very particular breed reached suburban Australia and why that path may lead back to torture.
A bitter bark turns into a clear, tight history of medicine, empire, and smuggling.
The episode starts with a bartender tasting a sharply bitter bark, then moves into quinine, Kew Gardens, and the imperial push to secure cinchona seeds.
A museum object becomes a sharp case study in ownership, memory, and colonial history.
The episode turns a single object into a wider argument about custody, memory, and who gets to name the past. It opens on the eerie arrival of British sails off Botany Bay and keeps circling the shield's contested story, so the history stays tied to land, witnesses, and the…
A Disney-shaped legend gives way to a real person, a grave in Gravesend, and the harder truth underneath.
This piece pulls Pocahontas out of the Disney-shaped fairy tale and into a messier world of politics, money, and control. It keeps worrying at the distance between the myth and the record, then ends in Gravesend, where the statue and the grave make the tidy version hard to keep…
A Wellington tattoo studio opens into a hard, grounded story about mokomokai and the work of bringing them home.
The episode starts in a Wellington tattoo studio, using Rocky Mica's rough-edged space to move into a story about danger and the return of mokomokai.
A tree, a chalice, and a local story that widens into a larger history.
This episode treats the chalice tree as a landmark with two histories at once: the visible one and the remembered one shaped by local folklore about Catholic priests, penal times, and a chalice linked to the O'Keeffe family.
A diaspora-rooted account of the Parthenon marbles fight, told with force, detail, and lasting human stakes.
Stuff The British Stole opens in a school hall in Australia and uses that setting to anchor a long-running fight over the Parthenon marbles, the damage done in their removal, and why the dispute still matters.
A sharp, playful look at how zero became a world-changing idea.
The episode turns zero into a lively historical inquiry: what the circle meant, how it came to stand for nothing, and why that small symbol changed the way numbers work.
Mountain history, told close to the road.
Rowdy paranormal lore with the lights flickering.
Phoebe Judge narrates true crime history and interviews the authors who uncovered it.
Dramatized deep dives into American history, from the Galveston hurricane to Harper Lee's Mockingbird.
Dana Schwartz narrates the violent lives of monarchs, warlords, and queens.
This episode investigates the life of Sarah Bartman, a Khoisan woman exhibited as the 'Hottentot Venus' in 1810s London and Paris, exploring how her exploitation fueled scientific racism and the hyper-sexualization of Black women's bodies.
This podcast investigates how objects taken during the British Empire ended up in UK museums through dramatic historical stories from various colonized regions.
This episode explores the complex issues of stolen museum artifacts, including smuggling, legal battles, and emotional stories of repatriation.
This podcast series explores the global legacy of British colonialism through stories of stolen artifacts, human remains, and cultural treasures that remain in museums and institutions.
The host announces that the podcast 'Stuff the British Stole' is becoming a television series with six episodes airing on ABC and CBC, while also teasing new podcast episodes for next year featuring more historical mysteries.
Mark Fennell introduces a new podcast series exploring unexpected historical moments and people that changed the course of history, while providing updates on his existing show.
This episode investigates the theft of the Parthenon marbles by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s, exploring the controversial removal, legal disputes, and ongoing global campaign for their return.
This episode explores the history of the Benin Bronzes, stolen during the British Empire's 1897 punitive expedition in Nigeria.
Mark Fennell and guest Kash Sangadi investigate why the only dodo specimen in the world with preserved DNA sits in Oxford rather than Mauritius, where the bird originated.
Marc Fennell explores the Bakhshali manuscript, an ancient Indian text featuring the first recorded use of zero, stolen by the British Empire.
Stuff The British Stole's "Best.Named.Dog.Ever" follows the Pekingese dog Looty from Beijing's Old Summer Palace to Queen Victoria's court.
In 1977, five-year-old Graziella Ortiz was kidnapped in Geneva, forcing her father George Ortiz, a wealthy art collector, to auction treasures to pay the $2 million ransom.
This episode explores the theft of cinchona bark from Peru by the British Empire to produce quinine, a malaria treatment crucial for colonial expansion.
Marc Fennell investigates an Egyptian mummified head stored for over a century in Grafton High School's library, exploring its mysterious origins tied to British Empire looting.
Host Mark Fennell visits the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to find Tipu's Tiger, a near life-sized wooden automaton depicting an Indian tiger mauling a British East India Company soldier, built for Tipu Sultan, the 18th-century ruler of Mysore, and looted by British forces after his death in the 1799 siege of Seringapatam.
Marc Fennell investigates the Mount Keefe Chalice, a 1590 Irish religious artifact in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, exploring local legends of its theft by British soldiers from a 'chalice tree' in County Cork.
This episode explores the history of mokomokai, tattooed Māori heads stolen by the British Empire, and their ongoing repatriation.
Marc Fennell explores the discovery of the world's oldest rum in the basement of Harewood House, tracing its origins to Barbados and the enslaved Africans who produced it, revealing how colonial wealth built British estates and the ongoing legacy of this history.
This episode investigates the story of Prince Alamaihu, an Ethiopian boy taken to Britain after the 1868 Battle of Magdala, where his father Emperor Tawadros died and treasures were looted.
This episode deconstructs the Disney myth of Pocahontas, revealing the true story of Matoaka, a young Indigenous girl kidnapped, assaulted, and used as propaganda by English colonists.
Marc Fennell investigates the Gweagal shield, stolen by Captain Cook in 1770, following descendant Rodney Kelly's campaign to repatriate it from the British Museum.