Britain's Lost Tragedies Uncovered E-Book

Richard M. Jones

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 277

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Is any disaster really forgotten? It is never forgotten by the survivors who lived through the trauma. It is never forgotten by the emergency services who tried to save the day. It is never forgotten by the relatives of those who never came home. Britain's Lost Tragedies Uncovered is a look at the tragedies and disasters that may not have stayed in public memory, but are no less terrible than their more famous counterparts. From a late-nineteenth-century family massacre in London to two separate fatal crashes at Dibbles Bridge in Yorkshire, and the worst-ever aviation show crash in post-war Farnborough to the horrifying Barnsley Public Hall disaster – here are twenty-three accounts of true devastation and stunning bravery. They are tales that deserve to be remembered.

Leseprobe

Also by Richard M. Jones

Non-Fiction

The Great Gale of 1871

Lockington: Crash at the Crossing

The Burton Agnes Disaster

End of the Line: The Moorgate Disaster

Capsized in the Solent: The SRN6-012 Hovercraft Disaster

Royal Victoria Rooms: The Rise and Fall of a Bridlington Landmark

The Diary of a Royal Marine: The Life and Times of George Cutcher

Collision in the Night: The Sinking of HMS Duchess

RMS Titanic: The Bridlington Connections

Living the Dream, Serving the Queen

The 50 Greatest Shipwrecks

When Tankers Collide: The Pacific Glory Disaster

The Farsley Murders

Fiction

Boleyn Gold

Austen Secret

This book is dedicated to the work of the emergency services throughout history

First published 2021

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Richard M. Jones, 2021

The right of Richard M. Jones to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9839 0

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Introduction

1 1837: Southampton Fire

2 1861: Great Gale of Whitby

3 1869: Hosier Lane Family Massacre

4 1893: Sinking of SS Gwendoline

5 1907: Sowerby Bridge Tram

6 1908: Barnsley Public Hall Crush

7 1925: Dibbles Bridge Coach Crash (1)

8 1927: Hull Rail Disaster

9 1939: Sinking of the Piłsudski

10 1952: Farnborough Air Show

11 1957: Isle of Wight Air Crash

12 1968: Ronan Point Collapse

13 1970: Explosion in the Hull Underpass

14 1971: Clarkston Gas Explosion

15 1975: Dibbles Bridge Coach Crash (2)

16 1976: Fire on HMS Glasgow

17 1980: Denmark Place Arson Attack

18 1981: New Cross Fire

19 1984: Abbeystead Explosion

20 1985: Dover Hovercraft Crash

21 1990: Sinking of the Flag Theofano

22 1993: Southampton Airport Crash

23 1995: Knight Air Flight 816 Crash

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

I was only 11 years old when I started researching disasters, and it was the story of the Titanic that fascinated me more than anything else. This led to me reading up on the battleship Bismarck, mostly because the same person had found both shipwrecks, and would later go on to find so many more through the years. But, as the forensics of a shipwreck were broken down, I started to be interested in many other disasters. A plane crashed in Pittsburgh in 1994 and the newspaper coverage hooked me, as the investigation drew a blank for many years. The police investigation into major serial killings and the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 grabbed my attention similarly, and I soon realised that I was inadvertently creating a small archive of information surrounding any kind of investigation into a major tragic event.

As the years went by, I wondered what I was going to do with all the information that I had collected and filed. Sat in a pub in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, one day, I decided to write about the ones that had been forgotten over time. I would start with the one right on my doorstep: the Great Gale of 1871, where around fifty people had been killed and twenty-eight ships wrecked on the beach, just 100yd away from me. This led to me looking into other forgotten disasters, and for each of them I tried (and in some cases succeeded) to put up a memorial; in doing all this I also managed to uncover some fascinating and new information that revealed a completely different story to what was generally known at the time of these events taking place.

‘Smaller’ disasters tend to get forgotten over time. Everybody knows the names Lockerbie, Hillsborough, Zeebrugge, King’s Cross, Dunblane and Hungerford. The names alone lead the typical person to instantly remember what happened there that shocked them so much – a terrorist attack, a ferry capsizing, a major fire – and the fact that these were huge headlines in the papers for years. But, as I studied the forgotten tragedies, I became aware of some incredible stories of bravery that were unrecognised, unanswered questions that people had been too scared to ask, and memorials that had never materialised. Being able to find out something that nobody else had was incredible; to tell the story of these people, to open a memorial and to have the names of once-forgotten victims read out once again at the site of a tragedy made all the efforts by myself and all those who assisted me worthwhile.

It is here that we question – is any disaster really forgotten? It is never forgotten by the survivors who lived through the trauma of seeing people injured and dying. It is never forgotten by the relatives of those who never came home. Look into the past and the information is there, once you dust it off and read it. The police reports, the fire brigade reports, the archives, newspaper articles, the stories from survivors and relatives – the list is endless. But ask the average guy on the street if they remember Lockington and they will likely look blank and suggest you may mean Lockerbie.

So, it is my mission to tell as many stories of these forgotten disasters as possible, so that future generations can learn about what happened and understand what lessons were learned. In this book you will see that lightning really does strike twice, as a coach crash at Dibbles Bridge in 1925 was followed almost fifty years to the day by another, more devastating one, at the exact same spot. The same goes for Sowerby Bridge: an out-of-control tram killed several passengers in 1907; another out-of-control vehicle, this time a truck, did the same just a few yards away in 1993. While we do often learn from mistakes, accidents still happen, and people often take shortcuts.

I have chosen twenty-three disasters around the UK that have occurred within the last 200 years. Some are better remembered, mainly due to the fact they are still within living memory, while others are less well known. I can only hope that this helps us to remember many of those who have been involved in these incidents and highlight facts that would have otherwise been forgotten.

Richard M. JonesOctober 2020

1

1837: Southampton Fire

The town of Southampton on the southern English coast is no stranger to trade and industry; in fact, it is the trades ferrying in and out of the well-sheltered port that have made this place such a sought-after ending to a journey on the high seas. Reclassified as a city in 1964, Southampton is most famous for the introduction of ocean liners, which tended to get bigger as the years went by. Even today you can’t walk around the city without seeing evidence of the largest ships in the world, particularly that of the Titanic, which made her maiden voyage from here in 1912 only to come to a tragic end in the mid-Atlantic.

Not far from where the ships would come alongside lay the warehouses and merchants’ houses that would arrange the transportation and sort out costs, fares, legal issues, taxes and so on. King, Witt and Co. were merchants of glass and lead who also traded in oil and sugar, and had a warehouse just 140yd from the quayside at 80 High Street, right at the southern end of the street. Along with the buildings, they also owned two ships, the newly built whaling vessel Ariel and the John Witt.

The warehouse was a four-storey brick building with a cellar. In addition to a huge amount of sheet and pipe lead, it stored shot in bags, fifty carboys of turpentine, each of 12 gallons, oil, varnish, wine, paint, glass, brushes, lamp black, resin, bottle wax and almost 200lb of gunpowder. At the back were the stables and hayloft.

A flyer giving the public details of the 1837 Southampton fire. (Courtesy Southampton Library)

With the amount of flammable and combustible material kept in one small area, it would be the worst-case scenario for a fire to erupt in these storage houses. But late in the night of Tuesday, 7 November 1837, that is exactly what happened.

At 23:15 it was noticed that a fire was burning in the hay-loft above the stables but, although people rushed to the scene straight away, it was already too late to do anything about it as the materials stored there caused the fire to spread too quickly. Flames shot off in every direction and within minutes the fire became a raging inferno. The stables were joined to the warehouse by the roof and before long the fire made its way across this and into the main warehouse building.

Fire spread across the upper levels of the warehouse, touching the nearby Royal George Inn and setting the curtains and windows alight. There was a shortage of proper firefighting equipment and, despite its seemingly fortuitous juxtaposition, the water was a major obstacle for those trying to get to the scene of the fire. A human chain was formed to remove some of the other dangerous material to prevent an even bigger disaster, and thankfully a storage of gunpowder and turpentine was moved out of the way; otherwise that would have taken out most of the street and everybody in it. Important paperwork was rescued from the counting house, which opened on to the High Street, and slowly but surely the important items in the business were being saved.

But one by one the bottles of flammable liquids exploded in flames and spread the fire further, running across the floors and leaking through the boards to the rooms and people below.

People from all over the area rushed to the scene and for over an hour they helped where they could, but nothing prepared them for what happened next.

Despite having almost an hour to subdue the fire, the fire brigade was struggling. They had brought three engines with them, but these were poorly equipped; for example, none of them carried anything that could pull down the warehouse roof. The water supply for the warehouse was also inadequate, so they had to send someone to the reservoir 2 miles away to turn on the full supply. By this point, the damage was already too severe to tackle with light machinery and it was about to get worse.

Soon after midnight a series of huge explosions wrecked the front of the building and destroyed internal fixtures, causing parts of the structure to collapse. Fifty people were on the premises at the time and almost all of them were unfamiliar with the arrangement of the building. Many of them were unable to escape, while others jumped out of windows and crawled through the wreckage of the warehouse, the doors having been blown shut by the explosion. Many were buried in the rubble and wreckage, while those who survived suffered horrific injuries from which they would never recover. Most of these victims had nothing to do with the affected company and were simply nearby residents who wanted to stop the fire spreading to other businesses.

The fire was finally brought under control at 04:00 the next day, by which time the buildings were destroyed but the surrounding businesses suffered only slight damage that could be repaired.

When the drama was finally at an end, it was found that seventeen people had died within the building and another five would succumb to their injuries over the coming days. The youngest of these was 16-year-old apprentice butcher George Bell. Bell had been in the warehouse with Richard Young and after the first explosion they had dropped everything and ran quickly, but the collapsing internal structure fell on Bell and he was buried in the rubble. Young escaped but Bell’s burned body was recovered later. The oldest victim was 50-year-old stonemason John Harley.

One of the victims was William Oakley, only just married and working as a tailor. He was due to make a return journey back to his wife and child in London that evening after visiting relatives but was persuaded to stay another day. Another was Edward Ludford, a cooper (maker of barrels and casks) who died eight days after the fire, leaving four children and a pregnant wife.

The memorial to those lost in the Southampton fire at the bombed-out remains of Holyrood Church. (Author)

The charred remains of the victims were laid out at the nearby Fountain Inn; in addition to the twenty-two dead, a total of twenty-four were seriously injured, leaving ninety dependant women and children.

Those who had risked their lives to tackle the fire and rescue survivors were hailed as heroes, but nothing could alleviate the shock of so many deaths in one incident that should never have happened. The heroes of that night were named as Richard Young, W. Jones, William Terry, G. Carr, John Ford, Nathaniel Anderson, John White, H.G. Greeves and William Gouk. They were awarded a medal by the London Society for the Protection of Life from Fire.

Southampton was in a state of shock. The theatre and trading ceased as a mark of respect, with the Mayor, Joseph Lobb, launching an appeal fund to help the survivors and families of the deceased. This eventually totalled almost £7,000, including £100 from Queen Victoria. The fund was split between 101 people: £170 to each of the eight widows, £25 to each orphan (£20 to apprentice them and £5 for when their apprenticeship was over) and £180 to the three most disabled survivors.

An inquest was held and it highlighted the fact that the lack of equipment and the poor state of the town’s preparedness for such an incident had cost the lives of twenty-two men. With proper attendance of firemen, it may have been possible to pull down the stable and isolate the fire before it had spread to the warehouse. Of the firemen, the hearing concluded that ‘the jury are also of opinion that the supply of water was greatly delayed and the arrangements to obtain it insufficient and improper; that the arrival of the engines was delayed; that the fire department is itself incomplete, particularly in the implements for checking fire and saving life, and the arrangements in many respects defective, especially in the discipline of the firemen’.

The cause of the fire was never found, although fireworks let off recklessly nearby were blamed by many. The owners of the warehouse, Messrs King and Witt, continued to trade despite their insurance not meeting the full cost of their losses, which stood at £12,000.

In July 1838 two large plaques were placed on either side of the door to Holyrood Church listing the names of all the victims as a tribute to the memory of those who perished. Replacements were installed in later years after the near destruction of the church during the Second World War, when Southampton was heavily hit in the bombing raids.The church is now a permanent memorial to the Merchant Navy, the two plaques more prominent than ever.

The site of the fire is unrecognisable today. Modern flats now stand at the location of what was once a trading establishment, the nearby ancient castle walls and vaults giving the only indication of this area’s rich history.

2

1861: Great Gale of Whitby

For sailors, the coast of Great Britain has always been both a safe haven and a peril to be faced, with the weather conditions deciding whether a seafarer casts his lines and puts to sea or stays in port where it is safe. But when the good fortune suddenly turns sour and ships become stranded, it is up to the brave townsfolk of the seaside dwellings to risk their lives to save others.

One such incident was at the North Yorkshire coastal town of Whitby, a place surrounded by high hills, cliffs and the looming shadow of the medieval abbey that can be accessed by the famous 199 steps. This is not just a sleepy town, this is where the inspiration for Dracula was found and later the wreck of the First World War hospital ship Rohilla – a disaster that hit the headlines during the three-day rescue of her occupants.

But on 9 February 1861 there would be both an incredible rescue and a heart-breaking aftermath. Early that morning a storm could be felt blowing throughout the town, and the people sheltering from the wind and rain could only hope that no ships would be out in this, at least not out and in danger. But at around 08:30 it soon became apparent that not only were ships struggling with the huge waves, but they were heading close to shore.

The first launch of the town lifeboat was to the vessel John and Ann, struggling in the waves and heading closer to danger with every passing minute. The lifeboat itself needed a crew of around a dozen to handle the craft and pull the survivors on board, but they had successfully rescued all the occupants of the John and Ann and returned to shore as heroes. However, the job wasn’t over yet.

A schooner named Gamma was now aground, forcing the lifeboat crews to reconvene and launch once again to take off the crew. As before, they struggled in the huge waves and spray in their faces as one by one the crew of the Gamma were pulled on board and the ship left to her fate.

By now the two rescues had taken their toll on the crew and they brought the boat back exhausted and cold, but it was a good excuse to have a swift glass of grog on their return.

Incredibly, just three hours after their first call, a third ship was now requiring assistance. The Clara was grounding close to the previous wreck and so the lifeboat was once again pushed out to rescue the crew. Against all odds, they once again succeeded in bringing the bedraggled crew back to shore. By now they were physically and mentally drained but the sea did not allow them to rest for one minute. Two more ships were in danger.

The Roe and the Utility were both in serious trouble, and by now word had got out about the heroic rescues the lifeboatmen were undertaking and cheers rang out along the water’s edge as the lifeboat headed back out to sea. Amazingly, both ships’ crews were brought back in one piece. Five ships’ crews were rescued and it was only just early afternoon; the lifeboat crews couldn’t take any more. Two other ships nearby were now struggling in the seas, and although the Flora managed to navigate into the harbour and tie up away from the storm, the Merchant was now in distress. A sixth shipwreck was too much for anybody to have to deal with and the lifeboat crews agreed that they were too exhausted to safely achieve anything.

Memorial to the lifeboatmen lost at Whitby at the nearby Church of St Mary the Virgin. (Author)

Henry Freeman, the only survivor of the Whitby lifeboat disaster. (Frank Sutcliffe, courtesy The Sutcliffe Gallery)

However, as the ship came to grief and the thoughts of stranded sailors played on their minds, humanity got the better of them and each one of them realised that they could not simply stand by and watch their fellow men drown so close to land. The lifeboat was launched once again and thirteen crewmen headed out to what they hoped was the last wreck of this storm.

One of those lifeboatmen was Bridlington-born Henry Freeman, a 25-year-old fisherman who had volunteered to crew the boat just five years earlier when he had moved to the town. What he didn’t expect today was what happened when they went out to the Merchant.

A huge wave upended the lifeboat and all her crew were thrown into the sea. Already worn down from the five previous rescues, their tired arms could not help them keep their heads above the waves. Each one was thrown around like a toy without a hope of getting back on the upturned lifeboat.

Freeman had a new design of RNLI lifejacket and he had worn it for this mission. His choice had kept him afloat and he struggled ashore as the shocked residents of Whitby witnessed the carnage at sea, helpless to do anything. Who was going to rescue the rescuers?

The other crew members had opted to carry on using the old style of lifejacket, and their choice would cost them their lives.Henry Freeman looked back out to sea and realised that he was the sole survivor. His twelve crewmates were all drowned as the upturned lifeboat drifted on to the shore. Thankfully, the crew of the stricken Merchant was rescued later by the use of a rocket line from the shore.

After realising that the one survivor was wearing the new type of lifejacket, the design was soon widely accepted as the better option and was distributed and used accordingly. The inquest into the deaths of the twelve lifeboatmen was opened on Monday, 11 February by the coroner, John Buchannan Esq., and evidence was heard that highlighted the fact that these men were exhausted to the point of collapse and would struggle to stay alive if they ended up in the water.

The shock of the loss of so many local townsfolk reverberated through the streets. Forty-three children were left without a father and ten women were widowed. The sorrow of the deaths was reflected in the massive turnout at the men’s funerals, and even more so at the dedication of the memorial that now stands within St Mary’s Church next to the ruins of the abbey. The graves of the heroes of that dreadful day are now weathering and fading as the sea weather that took their lives so long ago threatens to take away their remembrance. The story of the disaster is told with both pride and sorrow at Whitby Lifeboat Museum.

However, this is not where the story ends, as Henry Freeman became one of the most famous lifeboatmen in the country. After the disaster he was awarded a silver medal for bravery and he continued working on the lifeboat. By the time he died in 1904 he had helped save more than 300 lives, and the image of him posing for a photograph with the Whitby life ring is one of the most iconic maritime photos of the time.

By unhappy coincidence, the same thing happened down the coast at Bridlington ten years and one day later. On 10 February 1871, a huge storm drove twenty-eight ships to their doom and capsized the town lifeboat. Six of the crew died as well as dozens of men from the lost ships, but thanks to their efforts the disaster was not as bad as it could have been. In the end, though, like in Whitby, it was just one rescue too many.

Today the Whitby lifeboat station has a modern rescue vessel packed with the latest equipment and lifesaving technology, which includes radios, beacons, a powerful engine and a highly trained crew.

Whitby Lifeboat Museum today. (Author)

Whitby RNLI coxswain Howard Fields, who is in charge of the lifeboat today. (Whitby Lifeboat)

Howard Fields, the coxswain, has his own his views of how history has helped shape the attitudes of today towards the sea and the respect for their predecessors:

At the time of the 1861 lifeboat disaster in Whitby in which only Henry Freeman survived of the thirteen-man crew, Whitby lifeboat was not then part of the RNLI, which had been established in 1824. Nevertheless, the memory of that fateful day echoes down through history and continues to inspire our lifeboat men of today.

Of course, the training, equipment and lifeboats of today are incomparably better than those of yesteryear when lifeboats were powered by oars. With our 2,860hp MAN diesels, the most up to date navigation and search equipment and capability of 25 knots that can take us over 100 miles from our home base, we provide a lifesaving facility that’s the best in the world. But some things haven’t changed. The sea is as dangerous as ever and can catch the ill prepared or unwary, and our crews are still mostly volunteers and as ready as in the days of Henry Freeman to risk their lives to save those who are in peril on the sea.

One big change brought about by the 1861 disaster was that Whitby joined the RNLI that same year and has remained a steadfast member ever since.

3

1869: Hosier Lane Family Massacre

At around 08:30 on Monday, 28 June 1869, the police authorities in the Smithfield area of London received a letter from a Mr Walter James Duggen. In it he told them that if they went to a house in the nearby street of Hosier Lane they would find something that would interest them. He also wrote that if they were not let in they should force entry. The street itself had been described as a ‘clean, well-kept thoroughfare, at the back of St Sepulchre’s Church and immediately in front of one of the main entrances to St Bartholomew’s Hospital’.

With this cryptic clue the police had no idea what they might find when they went to investigate, but went around to the house, No. 15. Nobody answered the front door, which was locked on the inside. The two-storey house was somewhat unremarkable, the property of the company next door at No. 16, Messrs Chawner and Co., a silversmith owned by George William Adams, the son-in-law of the original owners. The street itself was named after the fourteenth-century hosiers who lived and worked there to make what today we would call trousers.

When Sergeant Evans could not gain entry to the premises, the police went around the back and managed to get in through a window. What they found upon entry shocked them.

The dead bodies of eight people were in two rooms upstairs that were used as bedrooms. Six of them were children, the two adults assumed to be the parents. In the front bedroom the mother, 40-year-old Emma Duggen, lay on the bed with a child either side of her and another across the foot of the bed, these being Herbert Thomas, aged 4; George Henry, 3; and Ada Frances, 14 months. Another bed in the same room held the bodies of two daughters, Emma, 12, and Jessie, 6. In an adjoining bed was the eldest son, Walter James, 13. In the back room lay the father, 38-year-old Walter, the man who had written the letter to the police. Each of the eight bodies lay in night-clothes in an orderly manner with no evidence of a struggle, a bluish fluid/discoloration on the lips of one or two of them.

What could have caused these people to die? Was it murder? Suicide? It was certainly no accident, that was for sure – which soon became apparent upon the discover of a chair at the side of the mother’s bed that had on it a table glass, and a spoon among the bed covers. Bottles of hydrocyanic acid, also known as prussic acid, which was used in the silversmith industry, were found nearby.

The identities of the family members were confirmed by the discovery of a family Bible and the marriage certificate, which gave each person a name and date of birth. Charred paper was found in the kitchen grate but this did not throw any further light on what had gone on in the house.

The neighbours were interviewed and it was noted that the person living opposite had noticed their gas light on between the hours of 03:00 and 04:00 that morning, but this had been turned off by the time the police had arrived at approximately 09:00, just a few hours later. People remarked at how exceedingly fond of his wife Mr Duggen was, and how he had taken the family out for a walk over Blackfriars Bridge that Sunday evening for some fresh air, the house being cramped with so many people living together.

The police called in surgeon Frederick William Wilson from Farringdon Street to give the official notification that all were dead before they could proceed with an investigation. Mr Wilson then had the bodies carried to St Bartholomew’s Hospital for post-mortem examinations. With a large number of people now finding out about the house of horrors, bystanders crowded around and were desperate to see something. In those days decorum was just a word that was thrown around; when it came to something like this, everybody wanted to see the action. Some people even approached the police officers with money to allow them access to the crime scene and for a look around the house. All requests were refused.

When police looked into the life of the Duggen family, it was found that Walter had worked for the silversmith for around six or seven years after moving from Bristol. He had lived rent free in the house, which was company owned, and seemed to have a happy life. But recently the family had fallen on hard times when Mr Duggen had grown very ill, and following medical advice he had been forced to leave the company and would soon have to leave the house that came with it.

Walter Duggen’s body was identified by his mother, Elizabeth Smith, and she immediately wrote to his brother in Bristol complaining bitterly about his situation and the unkind treatment by his employers, although Mr Adams (his boss) said he could not understand how he could feel this way after the kindness he had shown to the family.

Duggen’s state of mind was confirmed the day after when his brother in Bristol came forward with new evidence: a letter, which had been most likely posted at the same time as the police letter. This one went into much greater detail. On the two sides of a sheet of foolscap, Walter spoke about his family affairs and his despair at his current circumstances that led to him giving up his job. He had already given notice and, not having found a new place to live, his notice had expired and he was still living in the house, although his former employers had allowed him a few more days’ grace for him to move out in the meantime. He went on to say that the children were poisoned but omitted to mention the person or persons responsible. The wording gave the impression that Duggen had been not only ill but depressed and in absolute despair. He was about to lose everything and end up on the streets with such young children.

By the end of the following day Dr Wilson had carried out post-mortems on four of the bodies and confirmed that the cause of death was poison by prussic acid, the strong odour present during the examination. The smell of it on the mother was so potent that it was apparently ‘overpowering’.

Mr Wilson also pointed out that upon examination in situ on the morning of the discovery, rigor mortis had begun to appear in the bodies of the children but not the parents, meaning that the latter had not been dead for long by the time the police had arrived. It was his opinion that the children were most likely fed the poison on a spoon while they lay in bed, and probably while they were sleeping. It was noticeable that the body of the eldest son, Walter James, was slightly turned to one side, as if he had resisted. The body of Walter Senior had been found with both his eyes and mouth open.

The acid bottles found were empty and said to be of the strongest form to be used medicinally. They had only been purchased the Saturday before from a wholesale chemist owned by Mr W. Vorley on 11 King Street, Snow Hill. He had known the buyer simply as ‘Fearon’ and he signed the purchase book in accordance with the Act of Parliament, although the signature bore a striking resemblance to Walter Duggen’s. However, Mr Vorley told the police that the person who purchased the bottles that day was definitely not the deceased.

An inquest heard the evidence from those who examined the bodies and the circumstances that led to the discovery. This is where the letter to Walter Duggen’s brother was produced and read out in full:

Frederick Jones Duggan

15, Hosier-lane, Smithfield, E.C,

June 27, 1869.

Dear Brother,