Dorset Murders E-Book

Nicola Sly

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 314

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Life in the largely rural county of Dorset has not always been idyllic, for over the years it has experienced numerous murders, some of which are little known outside the county borders, others that have shocked the nation. These include arguments between lovers with fatal consequences, family murders, child murders and mortal altercations at Dorset's notorious Portland Prison. The entire country thrilled to the scandalous cases of Alma Rattenbury and Charlotte Bryant who, in the 1930s, found living with their husbands so difficult that both found a terminal solution to the problem. In 1856, Elizabeth Browne rid herself of a husband and, in doing so, became the inspiration for Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'. The mystery of the Coverdale Kennels at Tarrant Keynston, where not one, but two kennel managers died in suspicious circumstances, remains unsolved to this day. And it was in Bournemouth that Neville Heath committed the second of his two murders, which led to his arrest and eventual execution in 1946. Illustrated with fifty intriguing illustrations, Dorset Murders will appeal to anyone interested in the shady side of county's history.

Leseprobe

Dorset

MURDERS

NICOLA SLY

Map of Dorset.

First published 2008

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2012

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© Nicola Sly, 2011, 2012

The right of Nicola Sly,, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 8391 7

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8390 0

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Author’s Note & Acknowledgements

1. ‘I will be damned if I know her a man from a woman’

Bere Regis, 1818

2. ‘The horse have kicked poor John and killed ’ee’

Birdsmoorgate, 1856

3. ‘I fancied it was a sort of deathly scream’

Stoke Abbott, 1858

4. ‘If you bide there chafing me, I’ll get up and beat thee brains out’

Preston, 1862

5. ‘See what comes of annoying a nervous man’

Walditch, 1862

6. ‘I did the act, but not intentionally, sir’

Portland Convict Prison, 1863–1870

7. ‘I hope they will prove that I did it’

Hampreston, 1869

8. ‘I tried to settle one last leave and I have succeeded this time’

Portland, 1891

9. ‘This is all through men going to my house while I’m away’

Isle of Portland, 1902

10. ‘I don’t want anything else to do with you, Mr Simmons’

Weymouth, 1902

11. ‘God bless you and keep you, dearie’

Southbourne, 1908

12. ‘She doesn’t want any money where she is to’

Gussage St Michael, 1913

13. ‘I am innocent of this crime – absolutely’

Tuckton, 1921

14. ‘You wouldn’t cheat me, would you?’

Poole, 1925

15. ‘My head feels awful queer’

Bournemouth, 1926

16. ‘I will have you all, one at a time’

Wimborne, 1930

17. ‘I have felt that someone, somewhere, knows something’

Tarrant Keynston, 1931

18. ‘I did it deliberately and I’d do it again’

Bournemouth, 1935

19. ‘I’ve been a good wife to him and nobody can say I haven’t’

Coombe, 1935

20. ‘Everyone will be astounded’

Poole, 1939

21. ‘This is my night to howl’

Dorchester, 1941

22. ‘Put me down as not guilty, old boy’

London & Bournemouth, 1946

 Bibliography & References

AUTHOR’S NOTE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When I was asked to compile a collection of Dorset murders, I was instantly faced with a dilemma – what to do about Bournemouth? Prior to boundary changes in 1974, Bournemouth was located in Hampshire and, since all the murders in this selection occurred before this date, five of those included in this book were technically committed in Hampshire rather than in Dorset. In the end it was the cases themselves which swayed my decision to write about the county of Dorset as it is today. Four of the cases were nationally notorious and the fifth – the story of the Wright family – was one of the most tragic I have ever come across in an almost thirty-year-long study of murder.

Thus the murders of Emma Sherriff in 1908, Irene Wilkins in 1921 and Francis Rattenbury in 1935 are included, as are the infamous crimes of Neville Heath, which took place in both London and Bournemouth. They join a diverse collection of murders committed for financial gain, for revenge, or for ridding the killer of a partner who, for one reason or another, had simply become a nuisance. Some of the murders can be attributed to the insanity of the killer, while others, such as the mysterious murder at the Coverdale Kennels, remain unsolved to this day.

There are numerous people who must be acknowledged and thanked for their assistance in compiling this collection. John J. Eddleston, Roger Guttridge and Theresa Murphy have all previously published books either on murder in Dorset or more general reference works on British murders and executions. The memoirs of J.D. Casswell QC, who defended or prosecuted some of the accused, provided a fascinating behind-the-scenes insight into their cases, while Douglas Browne and E.V. Tullett’s book on the life and cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury gave a new depth to the meticulous work of the celebrated pathologist. These books are recorded in more detail in the bibliography, as are the local and national newspapers, which proved an invaluable source of material. My thanks must also go to the staff of the Dorset History Centre for their help in my research and to the Daily Echo, Bournemouth, for permission to use photographs from their archives.

I must also thank John Van der Kiste and, of course, my husband, Richard, without whom this book could not have been written. His suggestions for improving each chapter were invaluable, as was his help with the photography. Both he and my father, John Higginson, have supported me from the first word of this book to the last.

Finally, my thanks must go to my editor at The History Press, Matilda Richards, for her continued help and encouragement.

1

‘I WILL BE DAMNED IF I KNOW HER A MAN FROM A WOMAN’

Bere Regis, 1818

At about 10 p.m. on 14 May 1818, Ann Loveridge was standing on her front doorstep taking a breath of fresh air when she suddenly heard a woman’s voice cry out, ‘Oh! The Lord have mercy on me!’ A low groan followed, then silence. Ann called out to her next-door neighbour, Elizabeth Rose, to ask if she had heard anything, but she hadn’t.

The noises had seemed to come from the direction of the home of another neighbour, Priscilla Brown, who lived with her eight-year-old son Charles in a cottage some twenty yards away. Ann Loveridge had a quick look around the area but saw nothing out of the ordinary.

An hour later, labourer Robert Lane was walking down Back Lane, the small road that ran behind Priscilla Brown’s cottage, when he spotted a woman he recognised as Priscilla lying on her back on a dung heap. Thinking that she may have had a seizure, he spoke to her three times. Having received no response, he placed his hand on her breast to see if he could detect a heartbeat and, when he could find none, he ran to get help.

The first people to arrive on the scene were Priscilla’s brother and a neighbour, Henry Philips. Between them, the men carried Priscilla back to her house, still unsure of whether she was dead or just unconscious. A doctor was summoned, but by the time Dr Thomas Nott arrived at 1 a.m. on the morning of 15 May, they had all realised that it was the former.

West Street, Bere Regis, 1920s.

There were a number of people milling about Priscilla’s small cottage by then and the doctor was only able to give the body a cursory examination, at which he noted that the woman’s throat was blackened and that she had marks around her mouth and nose. Dr Nott came to the conclusion that the woman had been strangled, but when he was able to conduct a more detailed post-mortem examination later that morning, during which he opened the body and head of the victim, he realised that the cause of death had been suffocation rather than strangulation. It seemed as though someone had obstructed Priscilla Brown’s nose and mouth, probably with a hand, and prevented her from breathing. Dr Nott also confirmed that Brown was between six and seven months pregnant.

The police began investigations into the murder and soon had a prime suspect. Everyone in the village knew that Priscilla Brown was pregnant and the father of her unborn child was rumoured to be John Gallop, a twenty-nine-year-old labourer who had recently married and now lived in lodgings just outside the village with his new wife.

In the course of their enquiries, police found a lot of villagers who had something to tell them about Gallop. Farmer Thomas Homer had seen John Gallop walk past his house at between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on the night of 14 May, heading in the direction of Priscilla’s house, which was about 100 yards away. Gallop had been walking at a steady pace, swinging a walking stick and wearing a rough, long brown greatcoat. Homer had seen Gallop pass by again on his return journey some fifteen minutes later, again walking at the same unhurried pace. Another witness, John Sexey, who lived nearby had also seen Gallop going towards, and then later away from Priscilla Brown’s cottage on the night of the murder.

Gallop’s landlord, Benjamin Romain, told police that Gallop had left his house at about 8 p.m. on the night of 14 May and walked off in the direction of Bere Regis village. Romain went to bed at about 10.30 p.m. but did not fall asleep immediately. He had not heard Gallop returning.

As the prime suspect – and in fact the only suspect – police wasted no time in arresting John Gallop and charging him with the wilful murder of Priscilla Brown. As he was taken away, Romain later testified in court that Gallop had whispered to him, ‘Say I was in bed for ten o’clock’.

Tried for the murder at the Dorset Assizes, before Mr Justice Burrough, John Gallop pleaded ‘Not Guilty’, denying all knowledge of the murder and also denying being the father of Priscilla Brown’s unborn child.

The first witness to be called was eight-year-old Charles Brown who, after being tested on his ability to differentiate between the truth and lies, identified John Gallop by pointing to him in the courtroom. He testified that he knew the accused because he had often visited his mother’s house. On the night of the murder, he told the court that stones had been thrown against the cottage doors three times. His mother had gone first to the front door, then to the back, to try and establish where the noise was coming from. At the back door she spoke to Gallop, then, without pausing to put on her bonnet, she went out into the back garden and walked towards Back Lane. She hadn’t come back until she was brought back dead. Charles talked of hearing Gallop’s voice calling him out into the garden, but said that he hadn’t gone because he couldn’t tell what Gallop had said.

At this, Gallop interjected, saying that the boy had said before that he had never heard any voice, and that Thomas Clinch had heard him say this. Mr Justice Burrough asked Charles about what he had heard several times, but he continued to insist that he had recognised Gallop’s voice calling him. Eventually the judge decided to ask Thomas Clinch for his version of events.

However, the decision to name Clinch as a witness backfired for John Gallop, since Clinch promptly testified that he had indeed heard young Charles say that someone had flung stones at the door and that he had later heard Gallop’s voice. Far from contradicting Charles Brown’s testimony, Clinch’s evidence actually corroborated it.

The arguments by Gallop against Charles Brown’s testimony set a pattern that was to be repeated again and again as different witnesses gave evidence.

Gallop disputed the testimony of Romain, his landlord, saying that Romain had spoken false of him and that he had never asked him to say that he was in bed by ten o’clock.

Several people came forward to say that Gallop had spoken about murdering Priscilla Brown before the event. Page Ross, a servant, spoke of meeting Gallop in Homer’s barn on 1 May and of Gallop asking him if he had heard any rumours. When Ross said he hadn’t, Gallop told him, ‘They have got it about town that Cil Brown is with child by me, but I will be damned if I know her a man from a woman. And if she swears it to me, damn my eyes if I will not murder her the next minute.’

Predictably, Gallop immediately protested. ‘He has sworn false against me. I never said I would murder her and you may depend on it, my Lord’. Yet if Ross had lied, so too did Thomas Strickland, for he had also heard Gallop’s threats and his statement matched Ross’s word for word.

Elizabeth Harris was another witness who, according to Gallop, ‘swore false’. She had been working in the fields with Gallop during the previous year when Gallop had bragged before her and several other witnesses that he could kill a person in five minutes without being discovered. Harris asked him how he would do that and Gallop responded by placing one hand around her throat and the other across her nose and mouth, pinching her nostrils closed.

‘Did he hurt you materially?’ asked the judge.

‘Oh yes, my Lord’, replied Harris, adding somewhat unnecessarily, ‘But he didn’t kill me.’

Gallop protested once more. ‘She has a spite against me, and every word she has spoken is false.’

The court heard from Thomas Homer, John Sexey and another witness, Sarah Welch, who had all seen John Gallop walking either towards or away from Priscilla Brown’s home on the night of 14 May. Perhaps not surprisingly, according to Gallop all were lying.

Finally, Gallop himself took the witness stand. He made a great show of dismissing almost every word of evidence given in court so far as lies and gave a detailed account of his movements on the night of 14 May, which, of course, did not include being anywhere near the home of Priscilla Brown. Yet although he insisted that he had an alibi for the entire evening, Gallop was unable to name any person who might have corroborated his story.

It was left to his defence counsel to try and repair some of the damage caused by Gallop’s testimony, which he attempted to do by calling two or three character witnesses for his client. In hindsight, this was perhaps not such a good idea, since none of the witnesses seemed to know Gallop too well and had very little good to say about him.

The jury retired for only a few minutes before returning with a verdict of ‘Guilty’, leaving the judge to pronounce the prescribed sentence of death. Calling the murder one of the foulest crimes he had heard, he urged John Gallop to fall to his knees after leaving court and endeavour by prayer and supplication to obtain forgiveness from a merciful God.

Gallop accepted the sentence with apparent indifference and, after leaving the dock, continued to protest that he was as innocent of the murder as a newborn baby. It is not known whether or not he heeded the judge’s advice to pray for forgiveness, but regardless, he did not have long to wait before meeting his maker. He was hanged at Dorchester on 27 July 1818 and his body was then anatomised.

2

‘THE HORSE HAVE KICKED POOR JOHN AND KILLED ’EE’

Birdsmoorgate, 1856

Nearing her fortieth birthday, Elizabeth Martha Brown was, by nineteenth-century standards, well past her prime. Yet she was still an attractive looking woman, with a head of beautiful curly hair, sufficiently so to attract the attentions of a much younger man. The fact that she had also managed to save almost £50 – the equivalent of more than £3,000 today – could, of course, have added to her appeal.

Martha, as she was usually known, met nineteen-year-old John Anthony Brown when he came to work on the farm where she was employed as a servant. The couple soon became lovers and eventually married, leaving their employ to live in a small cottage in Birdsmoorgate near Beaminster. John set himself up as a carrier while Martha ran a small grocery shop from her home and looked after their one child. However, the marriage was not a happy one. John spent long hours away on business, frequently arriving home drunk very late at night. In addition, Martha was suspicious that his relationship with Mary Davies, the wife of the village butcher, was an improper one, and, according to some contemporary newspaper reports, she once actually caught the couple in bed together. Whether or not these reports are accurate, Martha was certainly a jealous woman.

On 5 July 1856, George Fooks, a carrier from nearby Blackdown and a long-term acquaintance of John’s, joined him at home for breakfast. Having eaten, the two men loaded their horse-drawn wagons and, at nine o‘clock, set off to deliver their loads to Beaminster. Within half a mile, Mary Davies joined them and walked alongside the carts for a short while before leaving to go to her job as a washerwoman.

View of Beaminster village, 1920s.

The two carriers arrived at Beaminster, unloaded their carts and began the return journey. When they reached Broadwindsor, they stopped for refreshments at an inn. While there, they divided some money they had earned together, then went into the skittle alley, where they stayed drinking beer and playing skittles until half-past eleven at night.

They resumed their journey, with Brown calling at a saddler’s in Broadwindsor to collect a mill belt, which he placed on his wagon. The two men came to Mount Corner, where their routes home parted, shortly before midnight. According to Fooks, Brown was ‘a little in liquor’, but not obviously drunk and certainly capable of taking care of himself.

What happened next is uncertain, since the only account of the following few hours is that given by Martha Brown. She claimed that she found her husband lying unconscious on the doorstep at two o’clock the following morning and had, with difficulty, dragged him into the cottage, where he had clutched tightly at her skirts for several hours and refused to let her go to summon a doctor.

She finally managed to escape her husband’s grasp at five o’clock in the morning and ran to the home of John’s cousin, Richard Damon, who lived nearby. Banging on Damon’s door, she had begged him to come to her house as the horse had kicked John and injured him.

Damon found Brown lying on the floor of his cottage, a handkerchief bound round his head. There was a pool of blood on the floor behind him and his hair was matted with blood and brain tissue. Damon picked up his cousin’s limp hand and found it cold – John Brown was dead. When he broke this news to Martha, her only response was to ask, ‘Is he?’ Moments later she asked Damon to go and call Harriet Knight.

Damon did as she asked, then went straight to the field where he knew that Brown normally kept his horse. There he found the horse safely locked in its stable. His cousin’s hat was standing against the gatepost on its crown. There was a little vomit on the ground near to where the hat was found and marks in the roadside dust, which seemed to indicate that a man had fallen to his knees there. The gate was closed and latched and the horse’s halter lay just inside it, beneath the rail of a hayrick.

Having picked up the hat and noticed that it was undamaged and unmarked by blood, Damon returned to his cousin’s home, stopping on the way to summon help from numerous villagers. He arrived back in the company of the village publican, Mr Stanton, Joseph Davies (husband of Mary) and Francis Turner, Brown’s next-door neighbour. They were greeted by Martha, who told them, ‘The horse have kicked poor John and killed ’ee’ [sic].

The men examined the dead body and noted the presence of a great many wounds on John Brown’s head. One of his boots was unlaced and one hand was bent at a strange angle. They looked for evidence of blood in the passageway, along which Martha would have helped her husband, and also in the road outside the cottage, but found none.

Martha continued to repeat her account of her husband being kicked by his horse. George Fooks, who arrived later that morning, asked if Brown had managed to say anything before he died. According to Martha, he had pointed to his head and said simply, ‘the horse’. She told Fooks that she had sat on the floor cradling her husband’s head from two o’clock onwards, while he clung to her waist. She had only managed to escape to summon help when he grew weak and fainted.

Initially, Martha’s account of events was believed. The horse was known to be a particularly vicious animal and Brown’s frequent drunkenness was also legendary in the area. However, Brown had several wounds to his head and his skull was completely smashed like an eggshell. In addition, the horse had been locked in its stable and, in spite of the fact that Brown had lost a great deal of blood, no traces whatsoever had been found outside the house. At the inquest, held at the Rose and Crown public house in Birdsmoorgate, it was pointed out that blood and brain matter were found adhering to the walls of the room in the cottage in which the body lay.

Richard Broster and Joachim Gilbert, the two surgeons from Beaminster who had carried out the post-mortem examination, testified to the extent of Brown’s wounds. He had a broken nose and a triangular wound above his left eyebrow, through which the bone of his skull protruded. A further cut adjacent to his left eye ran vertically down his face and there were numerous separate injuries to the top and back of his head, as well as a fracture to the front of the skull. In total, seven pieces of bone, from half an inch to three inches long had been driven into his brain, which had bled extensively. At least three of the blows to Brown’s head were judged sufficiently severe to cause his death and, in the opinion of the surgeons, the damage to his brain was so great that, after the first blow, he would have been instantly paralysed. There was absolutely no possibility that he could have crawled, or even spoken, after being hit. In addition, both of the medical witnesses felt that the injuries – particularly the broken nose – would have bled profusely and there would certainly have been copious quantities of blood on the road and on Brown’s doorstep had his death occurred in the manner related by Martha. They also believed that Brown would have been unable to grip his wife and thus could not have prevented her from going for help.

The jury at the inquest recorded a verdict of wilful murder by person or persons unknown and, given the rumoured unhappy state of the Brown’s marriage, Martha was the most obvious suspect. In due course she was arrested for the murder of her husband and committed by local magistrates to Dorchester Gaol to await her trial at the next Assizes.

Her trial opened at Dorchester on 21 July 1856 and Martha showed no emotion as she pleaded ‘Not Guilty’.

Counsel for the prosecution, Mr Stock, acknowledged that the evidence against her was entirely circumstantial. He instructed the jury to weigh up these circumstances carefully before arriving at their verdict.

Harriet Knight, the woman Martha had wanted Damon to fetch, lived near to the gate of the field where John Brown kept his horse. She told the court that she had heard the field gate slam closed at about 2 a.m. on the morning of Brown’s death, followed by the sound of a horse grazing and footsteps leading towards the Brown’s cottage. Although she had not checked, she believed those footsteps to have been John Brown’s. Another villager, Mrs Frampton, told of hearing a frightful scream coming from the direction of the Brown’s home at around 2 a.m.

The court heard evidence from Richard Damon, George Fooks and Francis Turner, who all described what they had found when they went to Brown’s house on the morning of his death. The curate of Broadwindsor, the Revd Augustus Newland de la Foss, also addressed the court. He spoke of accompanying Brown’s mother to the house two days after the death of her son, describing how she fainted into his arms when she went into the room where his body lay in its coffin. Everyone who had been in the room at the time had been grief-stricken and emotional, with the sole exception of Martha Brown.

According to Revd de la Foss, Martha had told him that she was accused of murdering her husband but was as innocent as the angels in heaven. When de la Foss remarked that all the evidence pointed to Brown having met his death in that very room, Martha assured him that blood would be found outside and also ‘the thing it was done with’. She then asked him, ‘What should make I kill him to lose my home and have to lie under the hedge?’ [sic].

The surgeons then repeated the evidence they had given at the inquest, adding that they were of the opinion that the wounds to Brown’s head had been caused by blows from a blunt instrument, such as a hatchet, rather than resulting from a kick or kicks by a horse. Mr Broster told the court that he had examined the horse’s shoes and, although he found one shoe to be in two pieces, he still didn’t believe that the horse had kicked Brown. Questions were asked in court about a hatchet that John Brown was known to have owned, which had disappeared since the murder. Both Richard Damon and the local police had searched high and low for it, but it could not be found.

Damon’s wife provided the court with a motive for the murder, describing Martha’s intense jealousy of Mary Davies, a woman Martha consistently referred to as ‘an old bitch’.

Martha Brown did not enter the witness box since her defence counsel, Mr Edwards, was undoubtedly wary about what might be revealed under cross-examination by the prosecution. In fact, Edwards called just one witness, Martha’s previous employer, Mr Symes, who supplied a character witness for her, describing her as ‘as kind and inoffensive a woman as ever lived’.

Edwards concentrated his defence on showing that the evidence against his client was purely circumstantial. He complained that nothing had been said about a hatchet until that day – if it had been mentioned before, then Martha might have been able to produce it.

He dismissed the evidence suggesting that Martha and John had not lived together in harmony and pooh-poohed the notion that Martha was jealous of Mary Davies. He pointed out that, far from thinking of murdering her husband, on the night of his death she had been concerned only with his comfort.

Addressing the question of the lack of blood, Edwards pointed out that Martha had already told police that her husband had bled copiously onto her apron. He could find nothing to suggest that a search for the apron in question had ever been conducted.

Edwards also suggested to the court that it was not Martha who was responsible for the theory that the horse had killed her husband, but visitors to the house after his death. He also maintained that a person would need great strength to inflict such serious wounds and that Martha would simply not have been strong enough.

Finally, he challenged the medical evidence, stating that the doctors freely admitted that they had seen cases before where a patient had received what should have been a fatal blow on the head, only to live for years afterwards. As one surgeon had put it, ‘nature often excited itself in a way that was quite unexpected’. Edwards then put forward the theory that John Brown had been attacked on his doorstep by some other party; someone who knew that he would be carrying money from his day’s work.

The jury retired to consider their verdict, returning after almost four hours to enquire whether they might ask some further questions of the medical witnesses. Joachim Gilbert was recalled to the witness box and the jury asked if there would have been any difference to the victim’s head wounds had they been examined immediately after the murder, rather than three and a half days later at the post-mortem. Gilbert assured the jury that the time delay had made no difference to the nature of the injuries and also dismissed the idea that the pieces of skull may have been driven into the brain when the body was moved after death. The doctors also refuted the judge’s suggestion that Brown’s grip on his wife might have been a death grip, saying that, given the extent and seriousness of his wounds, Brown would have been quite incapable of gripping anything or anyone.

It took just a few more minutes of deliberation for the jury to find the accused guilty of the wilful murder of her husband and, with Martha steadfastly protesting her innocence, sentence of death was passed. Before Martha was led from the court to await her execution, Revd de la Foss managed to ask her if the story about the horse was a ‘trumped up’ one. Martha conceded that it was, but swore that she had never hit her husband. She then stated that he had met his death by falling downstairs.

With the date of her execution set for 9 August 1856, Martha waited until two days before to dictate a statement to the prison governor.

She told of her husband arriving home drunk in the early hours of the morning, his hat missing. When she questioned him as to where he had left it, he responded with a tirade of abuse. He then demanded a drink of cold tea. Martha said she had none, but offered to make him some fresh tea, which prompted a further outburst of shouting and swearing. Martha had then asked him why he was so angry – had he been to see Mary Davies? At this, Brown erupted into violence. He struck her on the side of her head with sufficient force to confuse her, then snatched a horsewhip from the mantelpiece and hit her three times across the shoulders with it. He then said that he hoped he would find her dead in the morning, delivering a final kick to her left side before bending down to unlace his heavy boots.

In a rage at being so abused and beaten, Martha had grabbed John’s hatchet and retaliated, striking him several blows on the head. After the first blow, Brown fell to the floor and never moved again. According to Martha, as soon as she had hit him, she would have given the world not to have done it. John had hit her so hard, she said, that she was almost ‘out of her senses’ and scarcely knew what she was doing.

The then Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, had already received a lengthy petition asking for clemency for Martha Brown but had decided against granting it. In the light of Martha’s new statement and the provocation she claimed to have received before killing her husband, the prison chaplain determined to have one last attempt at securing a reprieve.

He hurried to London but was unable to see the Home Secretary in person, Grey being in Ireland at the time. His under-secretary, Mr Waddington, had no means of contacting him and no authority to stay the execution himself. Thus, at 8 a.m. on the morning of 9 August, Martha Brown was escorted to the gallows at Dorchester by two clerics.

Wearing a long black dress, she walked bravely to the gallows and shook hands with the officials. Hangman William Calcraft placed a white hood over her head and strapped her legs together in order to preserve her modesty by preventing her skirt from billowing up as she fell. Her death was not instantaneous and she was seen to struggle briefly before finally dying. After hanging for one hour, the body of Elizabeth Martha Brown was removed from the scaffold and buried within the prison grounds.

A crowd of between 3,000 and 4,000 people watched the execution from a vantage point in North Square. Among the spectators was a youthful Thomas Hardy, on whom the execution had a profound effect. He was still writing about it almost seventy years later and Martha Brown was certainly the inspiration for – if not the subject of – one of his best-known novels, Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

[Note: Martha and John’s name is sometimes spelled Browne in contemporary accounts of the murder. Likewise, Mary Davies and her husband are sometimes referred to as Davis.]

3

‘I FANCIED IT WAS A SORT OF DEATHLY SCREAM’

Stoke Abbott, 1858

This is the account of the murder of Sarah Guppy. Sarah and her mother lodged with a man named James Seal and, by coincidence, the man suspected of murdering her was also called James Seal, although the two men were not related. The accused will be referred to as Jim Seal to differentiate between the two men.

Sarah Ann Guppy lived at Buckshorn House, which was situated in an isolated valley approximately one third of a mile from the village of Stoke Abbott, near Beaminster. The cottage was divided into two halves. John Hutchins, the owner, lived in one part with his wife and family, while a widower named James Seal lived in the other, with Sarah and her mother, Rebecca, as his lodgers. Although Sarah was illegitimate, she was ‘of good and chaste character’. Unfortunately, twenty-three-year-old Sarah was also rather weak and sickly, with some deformities to her back and neck.

Since she was not a very robust young lady, she wasn’t fit enough to work like the rest of her family and neighbours, who all laboured in the fields for local farmers. Therefore, on 30 April 1858, Sarah was at home alone, as she usually was, doing the housework and preparing supper.

In the middle of the afternoon, Jane Cornick, who was then more than seventy years old, walked down the lane to her garden, which was next to the cottage where Sarah spent most of her days by herself. While there, Jane Cornick heard a loud screech coming from Sarah’s cottage. Knowing that Sarah would be alone, Jane scrambled up the bank surrounding her garden and peered over the hedge, calling Sarah’s name several times as she did so.

She received no reply but as she watched, a young man called Jim Seal emerged from the door of Sarah’s cottage. As he left the cottage, Seal ducked down as though he wanted to avoid being seen. However, as he crept away he spotted Jane Cornick standing on the bank, and turned to approach her.

Jane asked him what he had been up to to make Sarah scream – had he been ‘making work’ with her? Jim replied that he had been doing nothing of the sort, adding that he had left Sarah peeling potatoes for supper. Cornick noticed that his hands were bloody and that he had some blood on his trousers. She asked him what was wrong with his hands and was told that he had cut his finger on some grass. ‘If grass would cut your hands, I should be cutting mine all day long, pulling up as much grass as I do’, remarked Jane, giving him some paper from her pocket to wipe away the blood. She then walked with Jim for about 400 yards towards the village of Stoke Abbott before the two parted and went their separate ways. Jane went to visit her son but Jim Seal apparently had unfinished business with Sarah Guppy.

At about 4 p.m., people working nearby noticed smoke billowing from Buckshorn House and raised the alarm. On hearing that his home was on fire, James Seal ran from the fields. As soon as he entered the cottage, he saw Sarah lying on the floor with something covering her face. Shouting at her to get up and get out, Seal raced upstairs to try and save a few personal items from the flames. Only when he came downstairs again and saw Sarah still lying there did he realised that something was seriously wrong. With the help of his neighbours, he carried Sarah out to the small orchard adjoining the cottage and laid her on the grass. Once outside, in daylight, it was obvious that the poor girl’s throat had been cut from ear to ear.

Meanwhile, Jane Cornick had heard about the fire and retraced her steps to Buckshorn House, arriving approximately three-quarters of an hour after she had previously left it in the company of Jim Seal. By that time, the cottage was almost completely destroyed by the fire, which had apparently started in an adjoining outbuilding. It seemed obvious that the killer of Sarah Guppy had deliberately set the fire in the hope that the evidence of his handiwork might be consumed in the flames.