Murder Recalled – Mary Bax, 1783

‘Every now and then a melancholy house is seen suggestive of ghosts and murders, but the windows are darkened, and not an inhabitant is to be found. … [Y]ou look ahead to the miles and miles of dreary waste with fear and trembling. All at once you stand rooted before a white sepulchral stone, which the moon brings in relief. For fifty yards around this spot vegetation has ceased; the grass will not grow, the flowers refuse to bloom. …Is it a mile stone or a boundary mark? Neither. It is a murder sign!’

      This somewhat melodramatic description comes from Clement William Scott’s Round About The Island (published in 1874). The location he’s describing is a headstone situated halfway long the ancient highway, which runs between the Kentish towns of Sandwich and Deal (a distance of 4 miles). According to Scott this is the site where one Mary Bax was ‘brutally murdered’ by Martin Lash – ‘a foreign seaman’. He goes on:

Our blood curdles in our veins, and we picture the murder on such a dreary night as this, and the shrieks of Mary Bax being carried out to sea over the salt sand-hills; no help at hand, nothing to save her from the bludgeon of Martin Lash.

The bloody incident, Scott informs his readers, took place in 1792, ‘so long ago,’ he writes, ‘that possibly it was not true’. Only it was true. Both Mary Bax and Martin Lash (also spelt ‘Laas’, ‘Lass, and Lascar’) had once been living breathing souls, whose paths crossed one fateful day during the summer of 1783 (and not 1792 as Scott stated). There are also other errors in Scott’s account of the murder. So what is the truth behind the slaying of Mary Bax? Who was Martin Lash? And what was his motive?

      Today the ancient highway snakes its way between the farmland and golf courses.  During the late 1700s the landscape – known as the ‘sandhills’ – was a mixture of grassy dunes and marshy pasture used for grazing, with clumps of willow clinging to the banks of the water-filled ditches that criss-crossed fields. Then as now it was an isolated spot, perfect for anyone harbouring nefarious motives. As L. Fussell comments in A Journey Around the Coast of Kent (1818), ‘[it] is both disagreeable and dangerous.’ Of course, Fussell’s remarks refer mainly with the nature of the terrain. But he would most likely have been aware of the Bax murder, so when he says ‘dangerous’ perhaps it’s not just the landscape he’s alluding too. 

      According to Robert Michael Ballantyne, in his 1864 book The Lifeboat, Mary was a ‘young and beautiful girl’. Burial records record her as twenty-three-years-old. ‘Having occasion to visit Deal,’ Ballantyne wrote, ‘she set out one evening on her solitary walk across the bleak sandhills.’ Mary was heading for Sandwich, some four miles away, though Ballantyne gives no reason for her journey. At the halfway point she is accosted by a ‘brutal foreign seaman’ called ‘Lascar’ – not Lash as in most other accounts. ‘This monster,’ Ballantyne continued, ‘murdered the poor girl and threw her body into a ditch that lies close to the spot on which her tomb now stands.’

      Again no motive is given. It’s as if Lash (or in this case ‘Lascar’) just attacked Mary for no reason. And as with Scott’s account, Ballantyne is wrong on a number of points. The most important of these is Mary’s burial. The ground in which the murder victims was interred was not consecrated ground. So Mary would not have been buried here.

      John Winter was Mary’s seventeen-year-old ‘devoted admirer’. Upon hearing of her murder he vows to hunt down Lascar, resting ‘neither night nor day’ until he has satisfied his desire for revenge. Winter’s little brother, David, just happened to be on his way the Checker’s Inn when he witnessed the murder. The terrified boy then runs to inform his brother. ‘It was chiefly through the exertions of these two,’ Ballantyne tells us, ‘that the murderer was finally brought to justice.’ A heartbroken John Winter then leaves the country, returning thirty years later when ‘the crime had been forgotten and most of his old friends and companions were [either] dead or gone abroad’. But it’s still a bitter homecoming, for Winter learns that during his absence David was drowned at sea.

      If this is all sounding like some mid-nineteenth century sensation novel then you’d be right. The Lifeboat is actually a work of fiction. A search through the local records did reveal a John Winter, who was born in Deal on 16^th October 1767. This would make him the same age as his namesake in the book. But whether or not he was an actual ‘admirer’ of Mary Bax is open to speculation. A similar search for John’s little brother was fruitless.

      Ballantyne’s was not the only fictional account of Mary’s murder. In 1850 the Penny Illustrated News published “Mary Bax: A Tale, Founded on Fact” by Thomas Mills.

R.M. Ballantyne and the cover of his 1864 novel, The Lifeboat.

      The story opens with Mary looking out at a moonlit sea at the ships anchored off shore. Believing she is alone she comments on the beauty of the site before her and the greatness of God. A voice behind concurs. Startled she turns to find Martin Lash (whom we are told is of Spanish birth, but has lived most of his life in England) is there too. After a brief exchange of pleasantries they bid each other good night. Lash, who is by now madly in love, watches Mary recede into the distance. Later he declares his love for her. But Mary is already engaged to another – a sailor who is away at sea – and she rejects Lash’s romantic proposal.

“Since then,” said Martin ironically, “the conversation is painful, doubtless my presence is not required. I wish you good evening, Miss Bax; the next time we meet again,” he continued, his eyes gleaming with rage, “it will be under different circumstances – we shall see who will be the suer then.”

      Mary is terrified by Lash’s rage. She later, through a ‘torrent of tears’, explains to her father what has occurred, and how she believes Lash now ‘intends me harm’. Her father tries to console her, saying the Spaniard’s angry words are nothing more than hurt vanity. But the experience unsettles Mary for days after and she experience nightmares. Weeks later she meets Martin Lash on the ancient highway, where (after conveniently being told to ‘prepare to die!’) she is strangled.

      Lash goes on the run, but is later caught in a churchyard in Dover. After his trial he is executed at the murder site and gibbeted; his bones being left to ‘blanch in the sun’.

      Mills’ account to us would seem over the top melodramatic. But for the Victorians they just couldn’t get enough. Other notorious crimes and criminals were retold by writers, who wouldn’t allow a little thing such as historical accuracy to get in the way of a good yarn. Mill’s even gives us a description of Mary Bax, but is it accurate? According to him she was of middle height with a ‘faultless figure’ and ‘symmetrical proportions’. Her features were plain, but the more you looked at them the more pleasing they became. When serious, her ‘wild blue eyes’ kindled into ‘vivacious brilliancy’ and ‘sparkled with diamond-like lustre’.

      As with nineteenth century accounts on Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd and Dick Turpin, it’s hard to know in Mills’ account of the murder of Mary Bax where fiction ends and historical truth begins. So let me repeat an earlier question. What is the truth behind the slaying of Mary Bax? To answer that it’s best we turn to the official records, which paint a far less romantic picture.

St Peter’s Church burial register recording the date of Mary’s burial.

      The morning of Monday  25^th August 1783 had been one of sunshine and showers. At around 10 a.m. twenty-five-year-old Mary Bax, a well-respected young woman from Deal, began her journey along the ancient highway to Sandwich. The purpose of her journey was to deliver a parcel (sadly, records don’t record its contents). As she passes the Checker’s Inn (also known as the ‘halfway house’) she passes a young vagabond sitting at the road side. Whether Mary took any notice of Martin Laas (all the official records spell his name thus) is not known. But upon spotting Mary carrying her parcel Laas decides to follow and rob her.

      He stalks his victim for about half a mile, before finally catching her up. Laas asks for directions to Sheerness. Mary replies that he is a ‘great distance’ away, and when Lass begs for money to ‘bear his expences’, Miss Bax regrets she has none to give. Unperturbed, Martin Laas accompanies his prey a little longer. The Newgate Calendar reveals what occurred next:

…[O]n passing a ditch, [he] pushed her into it, and jumping upon her, into mud and water up to his middle, and thus smothered her. He then took a bundle which she carried in her hands, and her shoes from her feet, with which he made off through the marshes, across the country towards Dover.

      Unfortunately for Laas his crime was witnessed by a looker’s son (‘Looker being a Kentish colloquialism for a shepherd). The boy, whose surname was Rogers  (eleven or twelve-year-of-age), had been sheltering from the rain in a haystack, when he heard Mary’s desperate screams. Upon seeing Rogers coming towards him Laas fled. After discovering Mary’s body lying among the reeds and bulrushes, Rogers then ran toward Deal to raise the alarm. He was immediately taken to the local magistrate, where he explained all.

      Martin Laas was eventually caught sleeping in a churchyard in Dover (some more contemporary accounts state it was Folkestone). He was committed to St Dunstan’s Gaol at Canterbury, to await his trial at the next Maidstone Assizes.

The only known illustration of Martin Laas, as featured in the Illustrated Police News of 18 November 1882.

      At his trial in Maidstone the defendant behaved with ‘unparalleled audacity’. He showed no remorse; on the contrary he appeared very cheerful. He mocked the court and insulted the witnesses. When the guilty verdict was given Laas gave three cheers and became so rowdy that the judge ordered that the prisoner be chained to the floor of his cell, until the time of his execution. It was during this period that Laas confessed to the murder. He was hanged on Penenden Heath, which until Christmas 1830 was the site for all Maidstone’s executions. Laas didn’t die alone. Also upon the scaffold was John Huntley (convicted of murdering his wife). After the execution Huntley was sent to be anatomized, but the surgeons, according to the Newgate Calendar, had no interest in Laas and his corpse was burned beneath the gallows.

     Laas, it was later established, had been born in Norwegian port of Bergen in 1756. As a boy he had come to England aboard a Danish trading ship. Deserting the services of his employer, he then joined the British Royal Navy, where he saw action in the West-Indies at the Battle of Grenada (1779) and the Battle of  the Saintes (1782). But after several years’ service he was discharge. Like many dismissed sailors Laas fell into destitution, which would eventually lead him to murder. ‘In this culprit,’ wrote the Newgate Calendar, ‘we have another deplorable instance of dismissing seamen, often pennyless [sic], at the end of that war, in which they often have conquered.’  It continued ungratefully, ‘When foreigners enlist under our banner, and having served our purpose, ought not the government, at least, to send them back to their own home?’

      As for Mary Bax, she wasn’t buried where she’d been murdered. Only the condemned criminals were interred in unconsecrated ground. Instead Mary was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Peter’s Church in Sandwich. The stone erected out on the ancient highway was commissioned by her friends. Upon it was inscribed the following:

On this spot

August the 25^th, 1782,

MARY BAX, spinster,

was murdered by

Martin Lash, a foreigner,

who was executed for the same.

The year, of course, is wrong. An error made by the stonemason perhaps? The burial register for St Peter’s records that ‘Mary Bax, spinster, aged 23, [was] murdered near sandwich, 25 Aug.’, and interred three days later.

The ancient highway looking towards Deal and the stone marking where Mary was murdered.

Copyright © Martin Charlton, 2016

Murder Recalled: The Bloody Husband

Murder of Katherine Sprackling, 1652

Among the British Library’s more restricted titles is a very rare tract published in 1653, entitled: The Bloody Husband and Cruell Neighbour or, A Truth Historie of Two Muthers. Written anonymously by ‘one that lives near the place where said muthers were committed’, it narrates the deaths of Katherine Sprackling and Robert Langley, during the mid-seventeenth century. The perpetrator of this bloody crime was the squire of the Ellington Estate – Adam Sprackling.

 The title page of The Blood Husband,

Published in 1653.

      Described as tall, cavalier (in both sense of the word), with long flowing hair, Sprackling was born in St Laurence on the Isle of Thanet in 1606. Some twenty-five years later, he married Katherine Lewknor, who was said to be a lady of ‘excellent character’ and ‘very remarkable for her piety’. Her father, Sir Robert Lewknor, had once served as High Sheriff of Kent under King Charles I. The Sprackling's were also one of the county’s noble families. They had settled in Thanet sometime before the 13^th century, and had acquired the Ellington Estate from the Thatcher family in 1558. Situated just on the outskirts of St Laurence village, the estate was vast. Much of it consisted of ‘luxuriant corn fields and fertile meadows’. Adam Sprackling, however, wasn’t interest in it. As the tract states, he preferred instead to: 

…ride about the Island, and frequent Taphouses, and there Rant and roar, game and sware exceedingly…

Fights were a regular occurrence. Sprackling would draw his weapon at the slightest provocation. But this wasn’t the worst of it.

      In a deeply religious time when church attendance, especially Sunday service, was deemed mandatory, Sprackling would remain at home, drinking, swearing and fornicating. The worship of God and the Word were of little consequence; the young wastrel preferring instead the company of ‘drunken ministers’ and women of low repute. Unsurprisingly his estate and fortune were soon wasted. Frequently intoxicated and foul, his poor wife on numerous occasions was forced to flee and lock herself away. Sprackling would also hold grudges against any who cause him even the slightest offence. It was one such grievance that would lead to murder.

      Richard Langley was deputy to the Mayor of Sandwich. He was also a god fearing man, ‘zealous for God and the State’. In 1648, he and two others – Edward Taddy, the parish constable, and Humphrey Pudner, deputy to the Mayor of Dover – were ordered to disarm the noableman. No reason is given by the tract as to why, but no doubt the squire’s fiery temper played its part somewhere. Langley and his compatriot’s executed their orders, which also resulted in Sprackling being briefly incarcerated in Canterbury Gaol. Some months later, the squire came across Taddy in the street and physically assaulted him, but for Richard Langley, he harboured a deeper animosity. During one incident, the nobleman unsheathed his sword, brandished it over his head and threatened Langley with an untimely end. On another occasion Sprackling pursued the deputy back to the unfortunate man’s home. With his quarry trapped inside the squire fired his pistol at the house and issued more death threats.

      On the day of his murder, Langley was out drinking when he heard that the squire and two of his thugs were again looking for him. Sprackling, along with Paul Allen and Thomas Emerson, had indeed come down to Ramsgate, then a small fishing town, looking to settle his grievance. Langley stole away. First to his home, but later he sought refuge with a John Johnson. After explaining his situation, the Johnson’s gave him a horse so he could make his escape. John Johnson would later recall how Langley had no sooner climbed upon his mount when he was spotted by Sprackling. The last anyone saw of Richard Langley alive was as he galloped out of town, with the nobleman and his cronies in hot pursuit. He was later found shot in the back and ‘wallowing’ in his own blood. He died from his injuries a short time after.

      Sprackling escaped arrest. No one in the town would speak against him. Paul Allen also evaded justice by going on the run. Thomas Emerson wasn’t so fortunate. He was executed at Canterbury later that year.  Adam Sprackling may have thought he had evaded justice, but not in the eyes of God. To spill another man blood was a sin and it was only a matter of time before God would act out His revenge.

      By the end of 1652, Sprackling was deep in debt. Many of his creditors had made claims against him; bailiffs had been issued warrants for his arrest. Some of those who had lent the nobleman money found themselves in debt and imprisoned. Adam Sprackling, naturally, couldn’t have cared less. During the intervening years since the murder of Richard Langley the villainous squire had continued his life of debauchery. But now with bailiffs ready to apprehend him on sight, he was forced to place himself under self-imposed house arrest. This was bad news for Katherine. Unable to indulge his nefarious habits he became even more violent. His savage rages would send the entire household scuttling for cover. Katherine took the brunt of his torment and abuse. She in turn remained stoically loyal and loving towards her husband. Finally, on the evening of 12^th December events took a more sinister and bloody turn.   

Ellington House, c. 1886.

      Sprackling had spent much of that evening drinking with a neighbour by the surname of Lamming. At around 10 p.m. the squire sent word to a seaman called Knowler, living in Ramsgate, instructing him to call at the house at once. Knowler refused, saying that it was late and he was in bed. Unperturbed, Sprackling instructed one of his elderly tenants, an old man by the surname of Martin, to come instead. Martin was also in bed, but rose and went to his neighbour. When he arrived at Ellington House, the old man was taken to the kitchen. There he found Sprackling and his wife, Lamming, and a servant called Ewell. Shortly after Lamming asked to be excused; perhaps he sensed the squire meant his wife mischief and wanted no part of it. The nobleman acquiesced.

      As the night wore on, Sprackling’s mood darkened. He instructed Martin to bind Ewell’s legs. The two men believed it yet another of the nobleman’s practical jokes. Martin did as instructed and bound the servant’s legs with using dog couplings. Ewell would spend the rest of the evening tied-up on the floor.

      Sprackling then turned on his wife. He accused her of conspiracy and being in cahoots with the bailiffs by leaving doors to the house open. Katherine sat quietly as she took yet another barrage of verbal abuse. ‘Her words to him,’ claims the tract, ‘were full of loving and sweat expression’. In response Sprackling struck her about the face with his dagger (the tract doesn’t state whether he used the blade or hilt). The blow hurt her jaw, but Katherine continued to be patient towards her husband, though she now said very little to him. Ever the bully, Sprackling persisted tormenting her. This outpouring of hatred went on until early morning. Finally, after sustaining hours of abuse, Katherine, ‘being weary, and in great fear’ of her life, got up to leave. The tract narrates what occurred next:

… the Gentlewoman … rose up to go out of the room, and lifting her hand to open the dore, her Husband following her with chopping-knife in his hand, cut her wrist therewith, so that the bone was cut in sunder; her hand hung down only by the sinews and skin; No help was neer, Ewell bound, and Martin old and weak, and fearing his own life; durst not interpose, but only prayed his Mistris to stay and be quiet, he sayd he hoped all would be well; And Martin got a napkin and bound her hand with it.

Sprackling, however, wasn’t done – far from it. Later he stuck her again on the head with the chopping knife. Katherine fell down bleeding, but, according to the tract, recovered herself and…

…kneeling cryd, and prayed to God for pardon of her own sins, and of her Husband’s sin [,] beseeching God to forgive him, for she forgave him. But in the time of her praying thus, her Husband chopt her head in midst into the brains, so that she fell down stark dead instantly, lying in her own blood.

      ‘Now let’s kill the dogs,’ Sprackling said, ‘and then they’ll say we are mad indeed!’

      The squire killed six of his dogs, the bodies of four he threw next to his wife. He then ordered old Martin to smear Katherine’s blood over Ewell’s face. Sprackling then bloodied the old man’s face and then his own. ‘For this fact,’ states the tract, ‘Master Sprackling was apprehended that night, having a Dagger in one hand and Pistol in the other…’ He was escorted to Sandwich Gaol. After the coroner’s inquest, held the following day, old Martin was also arrested.

      Their trial took place at Sandwich’s Guildhall on Friday 22^nd April 1653. In his opening address, prosecuting counsel, Peter Peak, spoke of the ‘crying sin of murther’ and how such acts were a ‘land-defiling and God provoking sin’. The court then received the Bill of Indictment, which was presented by Katherine’s brother – Steward Lewknor. Sprackling tried to disrupt the proceedings by objecting to every man summoned for jury service. Nevertheless, despite his best efforts, a jury was sworn and the trial proceeded. Naturally both men pleaded not guilty to the charge of wilful murder.

      For his defence Sprackling pleaded diminished responsibility (Martin’s defence is not mentioned).  However, the prosecution were able to produce a number of witnesses who were able to contradict this plea. Many were those assaulted by the squire during heated scuffles in the Inns and Taverns of Thanet. One Robert Lister deposed how after a quarrel, he was later set upon by one of Sprackling’s thugs. Others came forward and told the court of ‘bloodied assaults’ inflicted upon them by the nobleman. Even the people of Ramsgate finally broke their silence regarding Sprackling’s part in the murder of Richard Langley. The most damning evidence, however, came from Ewell. 

      In response, Sprackling tried to counter the prosecution’s case by calling two physicians to confirm his mental instability. They failed to appear. The defendant was able to produce several of his mistresses, each of whom swore that he was indeed mad. The jury, however, didn’t believe any of it. They found Sprackling guilty, but acquitted Martin. When asked by the judge to respond to the guilty verdict, Sprackling replied: ‘no man can judge between man and wife, but God alone!’  The judge then passed the sentence of death by hanging.

      On Wednesday 27^th April, before a crowd of some 2,000 people, Adam Sprackling was hanged at Gallows Field, on the outskirts of Sandwich. While awaiting his sentence he refused to see anyone, and as he was being leading to the gallows he instructed the Sheriff of Sandwich to ‘make guard that no man, Minster, or other, might come neer to speak to him’. A churchman in the crowd did try and plead with him. Would he not clear his conscience before God and state whether or not he had ordered Langley’s murder?

      ‘Sir, I have made my confession to God,’ replied the squire, ‘I pray trouble me not; man hath nothing to do with it!’

      After his execution, Sprackling’s body was cut down and coffined outside the Three Kings Inn. Then, under the cover of darkness, he was secretly buried next to his unfortunate wife inside St Laurence Church. No entry of his interment appears in the parish register (see Bygone Kent, Vol. 19, No. 3). The Ellington Estate briefly passed to his son, Robert. He in turn sold it to the Troward family in 1659 (see Bygone Kent, Vol. 13, No. 12). The Sprackling’s would never again return to either Ellington or St Laurence.

Copyright © Martin Charlton, 2015.
Originally published in the May/June 2015 issue of Bygone Kent.

   

Conan Doyle’s Hound: The Origins of a Crime Classic.

“A man like that mustn’t die of a pin-prick or influenza. His death must be violent and intensely dramatic,” so said Arthur Conan Doyle in December 1892. The man he planned to kill was none other than the world’s first consulting detective – and his most famous creation – Sherlock Holmes.

      The following August the great detective’s fate was sealed, and when announced in The Final Problem (published in December 1893) both readers and shareholders of The Strand Magazine were said to have been shocked at the author’s decision. Such was Holmes’ reputation that after he had plunged to his death with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, some of London’s city gents wore black armbands. Conan Doyle’s reason for such a dramatic and permanent course of action was that Holmes “takes my mind from better things”. With Sherlock now gone he could devote more time to writing his historical novels, what he considered his ‘more serious literary work’. It would be a career moved that would prove unwise. But the world had not seen the last of Sherlock Holmes, and it would be a gigantic menacing hound from British folklore that would bring about his resurrection.

      Eight years after the publication of The Final Problem, Conan Doyle was staying at the Royal Links Hotel in Cromer, Norfolk. It was March 1901. With him was a young journalist called Bertram Fletcher Robinson. The two had met on-board the SS Briton, bound for England from South Africa. Fletcher Robinson, unbeknown to Conan Doyle at the time, would be very instrumental in Holmes’ return, for he would later draw the writer’s attention to the legend of the black dog, and Cromer just happened to be the stomping ground of the most malevolent of these creatures – Black Shuck.

      British folklore is peppered with tales of spectral black dogs and phantom hounds, either singly or in packs; hence the number of Black Dog Lanes and Black Dog Inns to be found in villages and small towns countrywide. Some are said to guard ancient burial sites, pathways and reputed buried treasure. Others are believed to haunt the locations where tragedy has occurred, such as a disaster, brutal murder or a place of execution. A few black dogs are considered benevolent – protecting lonely travellers or children out playing. When during the 1930s an outsider questioned locals living on the Quantock Hills in Somerset whether it was safe for them to let the children wander alone the villagers replied: ‘They’ll be all right. Old Gurt will look after them’.

      Black Suck, however, or Old Shuck, (‘Shuck’ deriving from the Anglo-Saxon for ‘the demon’) was, and still is, regarded as a particularly nasty specimen. Described as a huge black shaggy creature – about the size of a calf – with large saucer-shaped eyes that glowed like burning coals and wept fire. Anyone unfortunate enough to meet him was lucky to escape with their life. East Anglia as a whole is littered with the fouls deeds of this creature. In one such incident, described in a tract published in 1577, a ‘most horrible similitude’ appeared in the form of a black dog during a violent thunderstorm at a church in Bungay, Suffolk. After it materialized in ‘fearful flashes of fire’ the creature ran through the congregation, killing two and injuring others. The same tract goes on to describe how this particular Black Dog went on to create more havoc at the nearby church of Blythburgh, some seven mile away. There it left two men and a boy dead and burned the hand of another parishioner. Burn marks on the church door are said to have been made by Shuck before it disappeared. A weather vane in the village market place commemorates the incident.

        Conan Doyle’s (or Dr Watson’s) description of the hound of the Baskervilles is that of an…

      …enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish, be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us…

      Sound familiar? But as we shall see, Black Shuck is not the only contender as the inspiration for the hound.

      Fletcher Robinson was a Devonshire man and would have grown up with similar tales of phantom hounds stalking the wild and untamed landscape of Dartmoor. Among these were the Dewer, a mythic huntsman, and his pack of Whist Hounds (also referred to as ‘Wish Hounds’). Said to emerge from Wistman’s Wood – a collection of ancient gnarled and twisted oaks – he would hunt down the souls of unbaptized children. As a Scot, Conan Doyle’s own childhood would have had tales of the Scottish faerie hound called Cu Sith or Cu Sidhe; a large fearsome creature, usually black but sometimes green, and said to be the size of a small horse. It would hunt down and abduct human women for their faerie masters, who were then used to nurse faerie babies. During such hunts the beast would give three blood curdling howls that could be heard for miles. Other Scottish Black Dogs were solitary and seen as omens of impending death. So with tales such as these it’s not surprising that Conan Doyle was sent scrabbling for his writing materials.

      Such a ghostly creature would make a great opening for a novel, but the story would require a strong central character. But whom? Conan Doyle quickly decided that Holmes would be the most fitting protagonist. ‘Why should invent a character,’ he said, ‘when I have him already in the form of Holmes?’ Sherlock’s cold scientific mind would prove to be the perfect counterpoint against the supernatural terror of the phantom hound. As always Holmes would be accompanied by his down-to-earth, no-nonsense, narrator – Doctor John Watson. There was just one thing, and that was that Holmes was still dead! On this point Conan Doyle remained adamant. Instead the story would be set before the great detective’s fatal showdown with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Boyed-up with enthusiasm Conan Doyle wrote to his mother explaining how Fletcher Robinson and he were ‘going to do a small book together’ and that it would be ‘a real creeper’. 

      After his Norfolk holiday, and a brief couple of weeks in London, Conan Doyle headed for Devonshire. For the first eight days he stayed with the Fletcher Robinson’s at Park Hill House, their home near Newton Abbot. There he met Henry (or Harry as he preferred to be called) Matthews Baskerville, who was the family’s young coachman and groom. Harry, who had been in service with the Fletcher Robinson’s since he was fifteen, would later claim that he had been the inspiration for Sir Henry Baskerville. But as with the hound itself, there are others believed to be the source of the cursed Baskerville’s featured in the book. Harry would later recall how ‘Mr Doyle and Bertie’ would spend evenings in the billiard-room ‘long into the night, writing and talking’. With Fletcher Robinson as his guide, Conan Doyle made frequent trips onto the moor, soaking up its atmosphere. Then as now Dartmoor, though isolated, has numerous farm dwellings, but in Hound it is portrayed as a vast untamed wilderness, with bogs, tors and prehistoric settlements. From Park Hill the pair then moved seventeen miles west to the Rowe’s Dutchy Hotel in Princetown, which they made as a base while researching the main locations featured in the book.

      In his original manuscript Conan Doyle included real people and places, but then thought better of it and they were quickly fictionalised.  The Hound of the Baskervilles was serialised in The Strand Magazine between August 1901 and April 1902, raising the magazine’s circulation to thirty thousand copies, much to the delight of shareholders. Conan Doyle didn’t do too badly either, being paid £100 per thousand words. So anticipated was this new Sherlock Holmes story that people had to queue just to get a copy. George Newnes published it in book form in June 1902. Holmes was back – despite what his creator may say. In fact the writing was on the wall; the Hound whetted the public’s appetite so much that a year later Holmes was back again - this time for good - in The Empty House. What followed were three more collections of short stories and another novel, The Valley of Fear (published in 1915).

      It was during the 1950s that fans began to speculate where exactly the  hound had originated; which of Britain’s Black Dogs was the source behind Stapleton’s canine monster? Until then it had been widely assumed that Dartmoor was the sole source behind the fiendish hound. With its tales of Whist Hounds and legends such as that of the wicked Sir Richard Cabell (or Capel) – who pursued his half-beaten wife across the more, before murdering her and killing her pet dog, which later hunted him for the rest of his life – there was no question of Dartmoor not being the sources of inspiration. However, other legends of the hound materialised. One of the strongest contenders came from the Welsh borders.

      Near the village of Hay-on-Wye lived another branch of the Baskerville family at a huge country house called Clyro Court (now a hotel). The family’s coat of arms shows the head of a wolfhound with a spear through it mouth and five drops of blood. According to the family legend during the War of the Roses, a faithful hound had tried to warn his master that the enemy were at the gates. Baskerville, instead, became so infuriated with the dog’s whining that he drove the shaft of a spear through the poor creature – only to discover that the enemy were indeed at the gates! After that every time a member of the family died the hound was seen the night before, complete with spear. Conan Doyle allegedly – I say allegedly as there is no evidence to substantiate or disprove the claim – visited the Welsh borders sometime during the late 1890s, saw the coat of arms and visited the family at Clyro Court. After hearing the family legend he asked if he could use their name for a story he was planning. They acquiesced on the condition that he relocated his story to avoid any stigma and ward-off bothersome tourists. The Hound of the Baskervilles, it seems, was not good for their reputation.

      According to the people of Herefordshire, however, it was the Baskervilles of Eardisely Castle, near the market town of Kington that were the inspiration. Here too was a family legend involving a phantom dog – this time a huge black boarhound. This branch of the Baskervilles married into another local family – the Vaughans of Hergest (pronounced ‘Hargest’) court, who just happen to be their neighbours. One local legend tells how Thomas Vaughan rode around the countryside terrorising the locals until his death in 1409. Afterwards, in strangely similar circumstances to that of Black Shuck, he was said to have appeared in Kington market as a black bull and devastated the local church. The spectre of his equally nasty dog could still be seen dragging its chain whenever there was a death in the family. However, it’s the Vaughans and not the Baskervilles that this particular hound was originally attached too. Over time it seems it has been transferred from one family to another.

      There were also other Herefordshire connections to the book: a family of landowners called Mortimer lived just outside Kington (indeed, Mortimer is a big name in the area), and there was also a hamlet called Stapleton. Coincidence? Possibly – possibly not? But there is something else to consider, and that is Kington and Eardisely are only a few miles from Clyro Court. So if Conan Doyle did visit the Baskervilles there then it’s not that inconceivable that he made the short trip across the English border into Herefordshire. However, an article that appeared in the October 1930 issue of The Strand Magazine makes it pretty clear as to which branch of the Baskervilles Conan Doyle was thinking of when constructing the novel.

      Written by the then editor, Herbert Green Smith, it claimed that Fletcher Robinson’s main contribution to the story had been to ‘draw the attention of Conan Doyle to the tradition of the fiery hound in a Welsh guide-book’. If true then it means Harry Baskerville’s claim as the inspiration for Sir Henry looks unlikely. Furthermore, an inscription inside a first edition copy of the book presented to him by Fletcher Robinson reads: ‘To Harry, with apologies for using the name’. That’s the name, and not your name. So which branch of the Baskervilles was it? Well the case for the Welsh branch of the family is strengthened further by Conan Doyle’s note to his mother. Sent from Cromer, he informs her that the title for his ‘creeper’ will be called ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’. This clearly demonstrates that he had come across the name before his trip to Devonshire. True, Fletcher Robinson could have mentioned his groom during their stay in Norfolk, but what is more likely is that he had come across the name in that same guidebook.

      Harry Baskerville later claimed he had never heard of the Welsh or Hereford Baskervilles, or their hounds. Honestly, there is no reason to doubt him on that point. Today The Hound of the Baskervilles is considered by many as the greatest detective story in English literature. Not once during its history has it been out of print. It is a classic that ranks amongst the great gothic novels of the 19^th century. Titles such as: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. And like them the Hound has been adapted for cinema and television on numerous occasions, some good; others not so.

      Black Shuck and the spectral hounds of Dartmoor probably did play their part in the story’s development; writers after all draw their inspiration from a variety of sources. The story of Richard Cabell, for example, echoes the legend of Hugo Baskerville at the start of the story. But it’s more likely that we owe our thanks to a Welsh guidebook and the legend of a Welsh wolfhound – a wolfhound that went on to become a bestseller.

Copyright © Marting Charlton, 2015. 
Originally published in the May/June 2009 issue of The New Writer. This edited version, with new material added, written in December 2014. The copyright on all images used has expired and are now in the public domain.

Murder Remembered: The Billiard-Marking Bloodspiller

Part Two: The Quintuple Butcher of Ramsgate & Holborn

Early in the investigation the Holborn murder case received two key pieces of information: the identity of the victims, and more crucially that of the prime suspect. ‘…while at the coffeehouse,’ Insp. Tanner wrote in his report, ‘Mr White of 4 Featherstone Street [sic], having heard of the case, came and identified the children…’ William White, a 57-year-old local schoolmaster living at 4 Featherstone Buildings, explained that the three boys were in fact his sons from his second marriage. Their names were Henry (10), Thomas (8) and Alexander (6), and that they had been collected on Monday evening by his estranged wife’s lover.

      White explained how his wife, Maria, had left him some seven years earlier and had since ‘cohabited with a man named Ernest Southey’. William had believed that Southey was taking the children to their mother and that they were all going to start a new life in Australia. ‘A painful scene took place with the reputed father of the deceased children,’ wrote the West End News. ‘… after looking at the deceased, one of whom had a smile upon his countenance, his feelings gave way, and with difficulty he was lead down the stairs’.

      With this intelligence Tanner placed plain clothed officers at all railway terminals leading out of London, and at the docks. A description of Southey was issued to all divisions and the Home Secretary offered a £100 reward to anyone with information leading to the billiard-marker’s capture. At this juncture the detectives had no idea of Southey’s whereabouts, but in a communication to Assistant Commissioner Haynes Superintendent Searle, head of Holborn division, stated: ‘I fancy he cannot get away, every precaution has been taken to guard against his doing so.’

      As Tanner was writing his report news came of a second murder. ‘A telegram has just been received,’ he wrote, ‘stating that Southey is in custody at Ramsgate, having murdered Mrs White and the little girl alluded to’. The little girl in question was Maria White’s youngest child, Annie Eliza. Her whereabouts, as well as that of her mother, were at the time unknown. A second telegram was received, this one from Superintendent James Livick, saying that Southey was in custody and had confessed to the London murders. But things soon became confused when it was later revealed that the man arrested was in fact a former baker from the town called Forwood. In order to establish the facts Tanner was despatched to Ramsgate.

The Prodigal Husband Returns

Stephen Forwood had abandoned his wife and two children some eight years earlier. After so many years and not a word from him Mary Forwood had believed her husband to be dead. Then on the evening of Wednesday 9^th August 1865 he turned up out of the blue with tales of hardship and woe. At first he had wanted her to go for a walk, but Mary Forwood was suspicious of her estranged husband’s intentions. Instead she took him across the road to the home of her neighbour and friend William Ellis.

      Ellis, aged 69, lived at 38 King Street with his daughter, Adelaide (34) and his niece, Eliza Wright (14). A dyer by profession, Ellis and his daughter had been good friends since Mary’s return eight years ago, supporting her through all manner of troubles, including the death of her eldest child five years earlier. Now, to their surprise, Mary had turned up with her wastrel of a husband. In the presence of her friends, Mary Forwood told Stephen of the hardships she had endured since his sudden departure. Forwood expressed his desire to speak to his wife in private. The Ellis’ retreated to an adjoining room. After a few minutes Mary Forwood emerged and said: ‘Well, he has promised to come again at eight o’clock in the morning’.

      On the morning of Thursday 10^th August Stephen Forwood kept his promise, arriving back at the Ellis’ at around 8.20 a.m.  He declined the offer of breakfast. Mary introduced her daughter, Emily, to her father. Forwood had not seen her since her birth in 1857. At around 9 a.m. William Ellis went out to his workshop situated in the backyard. Adelaide offered the couple the use of the upstairs sitting room, and then got on with her household chores. The Forwoods went upstairs to speak privately. A short time later Emily was sent up to her parents.

Murder and Arrest

No sooner had the child gone up when two rapid pistol shots rang out. Adelaide rushed to the foot of the stairs in time to see Emily Forwood’s body roll onto the landing (some press reports claim that her father slowly descended the stairs, placed the revolver in her mouth and fired a third shot). Adelaide Ellis then ran screaming to her father who was already running towards the house. He then hurried upstairs where he found Stephen Forwood standing in the doorway of the sitting room, a smoking revolver in his left hand.

      ‘What have you done, Forwood?’ the dyer asked.

      ‘She is relieved from all trouble,’ Forwood replied, ‘she is better off now than before. I have done an act of charity.’

      Taken aback by this remark William Ellis then instructed his daughter to fetch the police and a doctor. Forwood made no attempt to escape. On the contrary he responded: ‘Yes, fetch the police’. When the dyer commented that this would ruin his business Forwood replied that he would compensate him for any losses, claiming to have ‘£1,200 of my own money in party’s hands’.  

      Stephen Forwood was arrested and taken to Ramsgate Police Station, where he later penned a bizarre statement claiming responsibility for the murder of three children in London. In it he passed the blame for his crimes onto various distinguished gentlemen of the state, church and police. ‘Under all the terrible runs of my life I did my very best,’ it ended. Despite his protestations of innocence Forwood was charged and place on remand at Sandwich Gaol.  During his time there he wrote to the social reformer, George Jacob Holyoake, requesting that he visit. Holyoake declined, believing him to be unhinged.

      Later that same Thursday Inspector Tanner arrived. Traveling with him was William White and a chambermaid from Starr’s Hotel (accounts in the press don’t give her name). White had come to identify the body of his estranged wife and child; the chambermaid to identify Southey. Upon arrival Dick Tanner was informed of the victims’ true identities. ‘Woman and child murdered here not Mrs White but Southey’s wife and child’, he informed his superiors. At Sandwich Gaol Forwood was identified as the man who had poisoned the three boys in Holborn.

      With Forwood now identified as being Southey, Tanner began to take steps towards extraditing the prisoner back to London, but his efforts were thwarted by the coroner who refused to adjourn the inquest into the deaths of Mary and Emily Forwood. ‘Prisoner committed on both coroners warrant and magistrates warrant. Refused to give him up. I return tonight’, he bitterly informed Scotland Yard. Stephen Forwood would stand trial at the next assizes in Maidstone, scheduled for December of that year.

     

I Am An Innocent Man!

News of the murders caused a sensation. Papers as far as Australia and New Zealand carried the story. On the 19^th December the Kentish Gazette announced to its readers that the ‘trial of this notorious felon will commence at Maidstone today (Tuesday)’. Four months earlier before Ramsgate’s magistrates Forwood/Southey had declared his innocence while objecting the presence of a photographer. ‘I protest against my photograph being taken,’ he pompously told the court, ‘I am an innocent man, and am not to be made a show of’. Magistrate Crofton acquiesced to the prisoner’s protestations and the camera was removed. This self-deluded belief that he was as much a victim as those he had murdered persisted throughout his period on remand and during his trial at Maidstone.

      ‘By half-past nine o’clock the court was densely crowded,’ announced Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, ‘and great anxiety was manifested to see the prisoner and hear the proceedings’. Arraigned under the name of Forwood upon the indictment of murdering his wife and child the prisoner, in an ‘affected tone of voice, but with perfect sense of propriety of manner’, said: ‘That is not my name. My name is Southey’. The presiding judge, Justice John Mellor, replied that it was ‘immaterial’, but if the prisoner wished to be tried under the name of Southey then so be it. This was the first of numerous objections by the defendant.  When asked to plead Southey tried to address the court.

      ‘I cannot allow any statement before you plead,’ Mellor interjected. ‘You must either admit or deny your guilt’. Not surprisingly the defendant stated that he was ‘not guilty’ of the charge. Finally the judge allowed him to make his statement in which he claimed his wife was dead before he shot her. ‘Then if there is any evidence in the course of the case upon which you can maintain that,’ Mellor replied, ‘you can do so. At present the case for the prosecution must be opened in the usual way’. Southey tried to argue but was silenced. He next protested against the jury, but Mellor told him that a new jury would not be sworn.

      Counsels gave their opening addresses and the trial finally, despite the prisoner’s outburst, began. Over the next two days the court heard evidence from William Ellis, his daughter and members of Ramsgate police. There were also depositions from Josiah White and staff from Starr’s Hotel, even though the names of Henry, Thomas and Alexander White were not on the indictment. The second day’s proceedings also examined the psychological condition of the defendant’s mind. Here there was a difference of opinion. Mr James Dulvey, a physician from Medway, told the court he believed Southey to be ‘thoroughly unhinged’; the governor of Sandwich Gaol, Lewis Arthur Hill, disagreed stating that the prisoner was ‘very intelligent’, and his conduct on all occasions had been ‘perfectly rational’; the governor of Maidstone Gaol, Major Charles William Bannister, later concurred with this view.

      After prosecution and defence counsels had given their closing arguments the jury retired to consider its verdict. In less than ten minutes they found the defendant guilty. Some members of the public began to applaud, but were soon silenced by Mellor. The prisoner was asked if he knew of any reason why the sentence of death should not be passed. Southey responded with silence.

      Justice Mellor donned his black cap and began to pass sentence. Only then did Southey speak. ‘My Lord,’ he interrupted, ‘I am asked if I have anything to say. I would like to know what are my privileges.’ Mellor replied that he may ‘state any point in arrest of judgment’, but he could not question the jury’s verdict. Southey tried to protest, but the judge only repeated his answer. After a few minutes of verbal wrangling the sentence of death was finally passed.

Woolmer’s Memorial

After the trial some believed that Ernest Southey had been unjustly condemned. Among these was the Chaplain of Maidstone Gaol, Rev. Charles Shirley Woolmer. He believed Southey’s death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of insanity. On the 9^th January 1866 he and nine others sent a memorial (or petition) to the then Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, requesting an inquest to properly establish ‘whether he is a person of sound mind’.  Grey didn’t like to be seen to interfere with the process of law and refused. Woolmer and the others produced a booklet outlining their views entitled A Remarkable Letter to the Home Secretary, but it was published too late to help Southey.

      On Thursday 11^th January, during a fierce snowstorm, and with less than 500 people watching, Stephen Forwood, aka Ernest Walter Southey, was hanged outside Maidstone Goal. His execution was conducted by William Calcraft, which was unfortunate for him as Calcraft was not a very good executioner. Most of his hangings were botched affairs in which the condemned slowly throttled to death. Forwood/Southey’s body was left to hang for an hour, to ensure death. After being cut down a cast of his head was taken and his body buried within the grounds of Maidstone Prison, where it remains to this day. The cause of death on his death certificate reads: ‘hanging for murder’.

      Southey was one of the last people to be publically executed in Kent (the last was Richard Bishop on 2^nd April 1868). Despite his initial notoriety both he and his crimes faded from public consciousness, replaced by greater horrors that were still to come…

Copyright © Marting Charlton, 2014.

You can follow me on twitter at @MSCharltonTweet

Murder Remembered: The Billiard-Marking Bloodspiller

Part One: Prelude to Mass-Murder

.An Entry in the Metropolitan Police Order Book for 1865, held at the National Archives, Kew, reads as follows:

THREE BOYS FOUND DEAD (SUPPOSED MURDERED). – E. Let a Detective Inspector make enquiry in communication with the Superintendent of Division, and report.

Earlier that Wednesday morning, August 9^th, Elizabeth Maidman, a chambermaid working at the Starr Temperance Hotel and Coffeehouse, Red Lion Street, Holborn, had discovered the bodies of two young boys, aged about eight and six years respectively; their ten-year-old brother was also found dead moments later in a separate room by the landlord, Henry Clifford. A post-mortem would later reveal that all three had been poisoned. The youngest child, Superintendent John Searle reported to his superiors, still clutched a penny in his hand ‘no doubt given to him by his murderer’. In response Scotland Yard despatched one of its best officers to investigate – Detective Inspector Richard Tanner, or “Dick Tanner” as friends and colleagues knew him.

       Tanner had found notoriety the previous summer with his investigation into the England’s first railway murder – the killing of Thomas Briggs. Things took a dramatic turn when circumstances forced Tanner to pursue his prime suspect, Franz Muller, across the Atlantic to New York. Now he was faced with the unidentified bodies of three children. Hotel staff had spoken to him about the man, believed to be the children’s guardian, who had brought them there, late on Monday evening (August 7^th). Described as being in his mid-thirties; dark complexion and hair; dark grey eyes; no whiskers, but a beard of several days growth, and wearing dark clothes, he had left late yesterday evening promising to return in the morning, but had so far failed to show.

An Extraordinary Charge

Sixteen months earlier and 134 miles west of London the village of Great Witley, Worcestershire, found itself at the epicentre of a scandalous accusation involving a couple called Southey and the then Earl of Dudley, William Ward, whose country estate lay a mile or so to the southeast of the village. Before a special convening of the Petty Session the nobleman stood before his fellow magistrates charged with assaulting Mrs Annie Southey. She had gone to Witley Court to plead on behalf of her husband regarding an unpaid gambling debt.

      Some fourteen months before that (in February 1863) her husband, Ernest Walter Southey, had been working as a billiard-marker at Kentfield’s Billiard Rooms, Manchester Street, Brighton. There he had won £1,172 from Earl Dudley’s younger brother, the Hon. Humble Dudley Ward. Despite an agreement between the two men that all debts should be settled at the end of the contest (a condition proposed by Dudley Ward himself), the younger nobleman found himself unable to pay. Instead he gave Southey an IOU and a promise that the debt would be settled the following day. This became the following week, which became next month, until he refused to pay-up altogether, claiming that it was only ‘a debt of honour’. The Southey’s were struggling financially. Annie’s ladies' school in Kemptown, Brighton, was failing, and they had four children to feed. Despite Ernest Southey’s repeated appeals Dudley Ward remained steadfast. Most of the time he didn't even reply to Southey’s letters. Then in the summer of 1863 he turned up unannounced at Earl Dudley’s London home in Park Lane. His lordship heard his case, but refused to pay on the grounds that he had already paid for his brother’s ‘honourable debts’ so often that he could not be expected to settle his ‘gambling transaction’ too. Southey persisted and only left when Earl Dudley threatened to have him forcibly ejected by one of the servants.

      For six months the nobleman heard no more. Then in January 1864 he received an unannounced visit from Annie Southey at his country estate, Witley Court (the couple had recently taken lodgings in Worcester). She explained that the purpose of her visit was her husband’s claim, but his lordship only repeated his decision. Over the next few weeks the Southeys visited a number of Earl Dudley’s family and friends, but nothing came of it. On March 12^th Mrs Southey returned to Witley Court to try her luck again. She was initially shown into the library by the groom of chambers, William Weeks (groom of chambers was basically a man servant who opened/closed doors and saw that everything the household members needed was within easy reach). Weeks returned moments later and announced that his lordship was otherwise engaged and would not see her. Annie Southey then said that she was feeling ill and wished to see the housekeeper. Shortly after Weeks left his lordship burst into the room angrily and announced ‘Well, Mrs Southey, I have already sent for the police at Worcester to have you watched’. He then seized her by the arm and dragged her from the library into the hall, repeatedly calling to Weeks as he did so. A scuffle between them then ensued as Annie Southey was forced towards the front door. Weeks held the door open and she was flung out. All this was witnessed by her cabman, Frederick Phillips, who later corroborated what he had seen at the Petty Sessions. Her injuries were severe enough for her to seek medical attention from the local doctor.

      Earl Dudley’s account, not surprisingly, differs from Annie Southey’s. He later told the court how after initially refusing to speak to Mrs Southey he entered the library and said: ‘Mrs Southey, I’ll not permit this intrusion. You must go!’ She begged to be heard, but his lordship took her by the arm, ‘without violence’, but determined to show her out of the room. She protested and grabbed him by his whiskers, and they scuffled. As soon as Weeks appeared on the scene her manner instantly changed. His lordship released her. ‘My lord,’ she said ladylike, ‘I wish you a very good morning’ and left, only later to return to apologise for her behaviour.

      It’s mostly likely that it was Ernest Southey’s decision to bring assault charges. The proceedings, which took place on April 2^nd, took five hours. Earl Dudley, himself, cross-examined Mrs Southey and those summoned as witnesses. Annie Southey had no legal representation, and was forced to conduct her own defence. There were gasps when the court heard the shocking revelation that Mrs Annie Southey was in fact Maria Ann White, the estranged wife of a London schoolmaster. Furthermore she had met Southey on Brighton seafront in such a distressed state that the billiard-marker believed she intended to commit suicide. Much was made by Earl Dudley of her being another man’s wife living in adultery; despite she was able to produce legal documents of separation. It was also revealed she had once been a prostitute in Brighton. The fact that she had been forced into this was not mentioned. After Earl Dudley gave his account of what took place, it took the magistrates less than ten minutes to dismiss the case. Ernest Southey was furious and threated to shoot his lordship. The press, on the other hand, were delighted. ‘An Englishman’s house would in truth cease to be his castle,’ wrote the Worcestershire Chronicle, ‘if he were to be held guilty of an assault for turning out persons…’ Even newspapers that were not supporters of Earl Dudley or his views voiced their satisfaction. ‘We are not ardent supporters of that nobleman,’ wrote the Daily Telegraph, ‘but we really see nothing to blame in the course of conduct which was so painful to Mr Southey…’. No doubt many believed that the satisfactory conclusion of the court proceedings that spring day in Great Witley meant the matter was resolved. For Ernest Southey, however, things were far from over.

An Inspector Calls

Inspector James Jacob Thomson braced himself against the damp chill of late December. The 27-year-old, multilingual, burly detective from Scotland Yard had been sent on a reconnaissance to Putney at the request of the Commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne. Mayne had received a note from the Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell, who had received a missive from Ernest Southey alluding to information relating to ‘circumstances that threaten the sacrifice of several human lives’ and also ‘place the life of a nobleman of high rank in peril’. ‘I do not know that I can do anything with this letter, but send it to you’ Russell wrote. ‘If Mr Southey insists on seeing me he may be brought over here.’ Mayne had some misgivings about the letter’s content. Clearly this man, Southey, was a crackpot, but did he harbour any dangerous inclinations? DI Thomson was despatched to find out.

      At the time Southey and his live-in family were lodging in a small cottage near the banks of the Thames. It was two days before Christmas 1864 when Thomson came calling. The scene that greeted him was every bit as grim as anything he would find in a novel by Dickens. As DI Thomson wrote in his report: ‘…both Southey and White appear to be in direst misery, having neither food, clothing, money… there is every appearance that these persons suffering from continued privations and the want of the ordinary necessaries of life, are now both bordering on insanity’. The detective soon learned, during a ‘prolonged interview’, that Southey did not have any information to impart, but did have a grievance he wished to air.

      The billiard-marker told the detective of his struggles in life, of hard times and how he had won a vast sum of money but had been cheated out of it. He also spoke of the circumstance in which he met Mrs White. Maria White wept as she recounted her treatment at the hands of Earl Dudley. Since the setback with the Hon. Dudley Ward they had been living of the charity off friends and family, but even this lifeline was now spent. They owed seven weeks rent, and had been given notice to quit their cottage by Christmas Eve.

      Southey explained that he had written to the Foreign Secretary hoping to gain some financial assistance, and to ‘plead his case’. Clearly he had hoped that Lord Russell would act as intermediary for them with Earl Dudley. Thomson wrote in his report this chilling prophesy: ‘…should assistance be refused him, they have resolved to poison themselves and have written a narrative to the coroner to be read by him at the inquest…’. He concluded: ‘There is no reason to apprehend that they will cause any harm unless it is to themselves’. Commissioner Mayne forwarded Thomson’s report to Lord Russell’s office, and announced his intention to have Southey and White arrested for threatening to commit suicide – a criminal offence at the time. Consequently, as with Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, this Yuletide tale had a happy ending – albeit temporarily. On Christmas Day DI Thomson returned to Putney to give Southey and White, who had found new lodgings, one pound – a gift from Lord Russell. Even the threat of arrest went away after Sir Richard Mayne came to the conclusion that Southey was ‘wholly undeserving of notice’. After this Southey faded from view.

Ought not to be at Large

On the 18^th April 1865, Sir Richard Mayne received a letter from the Hon. Humble Dudley Ward, currently living in Paris. ‘Sir,’ it began, ‘I beg to trouble you with the enclosed letter as I do not consider Mr E.W. Southey is in his right mind, or ought to be at large’. With the threat of Fenian attacks on the increase, along with all the usual criminal offences and social disorder the Met. Police had to deal with; the re-emergence of the troublesome Mr Southey was the last thing Mayne needed. The letter enclosed was Southey’s latest missive to Ward requesting payment. Other noblemen also received unwanted correspondence from the billiard-marker. He even sent a long rambling letter to the editor of Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, and signed it ‘Fair Play’. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton received a missive that began: ‘The shooting of a nobleman as an act of natural justice…’ All touched on Southey being cheated out of his winnings, how ‘circumstance urge me irresistibly to crime’, and threats that he would shoot his family if his circumstances didn’t improve. It was clear to all who read them that this was a dangerous obsessive. Mayne, however, brushed these fears aside, still believing Southey to be an attention-seeking crackpot.

      An Inspector William Moran submitted a report (dated 27^th June) stating that he had seen Southey trying to hand papers to peers entering the House of Lords. When Moran enquired after Southey’s purpose for being there the billiard-marker told him that he wished to hand a letter to the Duke of Richmond. Moran moved him on. Still Mayne failed to act. Even a letter from Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, explaining how Southey had managed to get into his private chambers didn’t stimulate any action.

      Then in early July 1865 Maria White had finally had enough of living in penury and squalor. Those who saw Southey after her sudden departure stated how he was distressed and agitated. Perhaps for him this was the last betrayal. The final example of what he would later state as ‘man’s inhumanity towards his fellow man’. After this he yet again dropped out of sight, only to resurface a month later as one of Scotland Yard’s most wanted!

To be continued…

Copyright © Marting Charlton, 2013.