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- Herausgeber: The History Press
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
Discover the shadier side of Warwick's history with this collection of true-life crimes from the town's past. Featuring all factions of the criminal underworld, this chilling selection include cases of murder, kidnap, poaching, theft, assault and infanticide, as well as the punishments and executions that were carried out. Cases featured here includes a daring robbery at a country house in 1846, the brutal murder of a woman in 1819, and the drowning of a wife by her husband in 1870. Vanessa Morgan's well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to everyone interested in true crime and the history of the town.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Case One 1812 ‘Up to his devilish tricks again’
Case Two 1819 A thought struck her that she would murder her mistress
Case Three 1829 A rapidly increasing crime
Case Four 1837 ‘Me vil put you on de fire and put you to death’
Case Five 1846 ‘The house is full of thieves!’
Case Six 1852 Girl in a lilac dress
Case Seven 1862 ‘If I have I must have eaten it!’
Case Eight 1862 ‘No, no a policeman took the child away before my eyes’
Case Nine 1865 ‘A wound the size of his hand’
Case Ten 1870 ‘Oh go on with you; don’t come here with any of your folly’
Case Eleven 1875/78 ‘Are you not going to stand another quart?’
Case Twelve 1883 ‘I met the poor little fellow near Hockley Heath’
Case Thirteen 1888 ‘The devil has tempted me to do it’
Case Fourteen 1891 ‘You never saw me in your life before’
Case Fifteen 1892 ‘A short wiry young fellow’
Case Sixteen 1892 ‘The skull was smashed in’
Case Seventeen 1893 ‘I am a dupe of another man’
Case Eighteen 1896 ‘Driven to poaching for a living’
Case Nineteen 1911 ‘Blood was flowing from her throat’
Case Twenty 1911/13 ‘Wait till you come outside, I will pounce on you like a lion’
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Research for this book was mainly undertaken using local newspapers of the period, including the Royal Leamington Spa Courier, Warwickshire Standard, Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser, Coventry Evening Telegraph, Midland Daily Telegraph, Birmingham Daily Post, Birmingham Gazette and the Birmingham Journal, all of which are held in Warwick Record Office or the Birmingham Archives and Heritage.
Original records include parish and census registers, the Hatton Lunatic Asylum Records (ref: CR1664) and papers belonging to Slatter Son & Moore (ref: CR1908) held in Warwick Record Office.
All images, unless otherwise stated, are from the author’s collection.
Westgate and the Lord Leycester Hospital, around the 1950s.
INTRODUCTION
‘County town and assize town of South Warwickshire, a union and market town, place of county elections, and municipal borough, returning two members to parliament’.
Warwickshire Directory, 1860
Warwick grew quite rapidly during the 1800s. When the first census (a very basic headcount) took place in 1801, the population was 5,592. In 1851 it was 10,952, and then forty years later, in 1891, it was 13,459. A gazetteer published in the 1860s describes Warwick as having spacious streets which were well-paved and lit, and houses which were generally modern. The population at the time of the 1861 census was 10,570 – a slight drop from ten years previously.
Castle Street in the early 1900s.
In April 1870, a report in the Birmingham Daily Post described Warwick as being a ‘quiet and demure old borough town, the inhabitants of which appear to enjoy special immunity from such dreadful crime.’ However, it was the county town of a large county, and criminals were brought here to be tried and, in many cases, executed. The trials of murder cases both in the initial Police Courts and the assizes would attract great public interest. The people of the nineteenth century loved a good crime story, especially one of murder, and the newspapers reported every gory detail, from the scene where the crime had been committed through to the execution of the convicted.
The appearance of a murderer in the Warwick Borough Police Court always caused great excitement as in, for example, the following extract from the Birmingham Daily Post in 1888 regarding the case of George Timms (see case thirteen):
Long before the hour fixed for the hearing of the case the approaches to the courthouse were thronged with people anxious to get a glimpse of the prisoner, and upon the doors of the court being opened, shortly before half past ten, a tremendous rush was made for places, the space at the rear of the court being soon filled.
Mill Street in the 1900s.
St Mary’s Church, 1900s.
In many towns the execution of the convicted was considered a public holiday. A report in the Leamington Spa Courier on Friday, 4 January 1907, regarding the execution of a condemned murderer from Aston Manor, told how, ‘An execution, followed by the tolling of St Mary’s bell, was a melancholy start for the New Year in Warwick.’
The report went on to say:
It was hardly likely the public would interest themselves on his behalf. The quietness of present-day executions is in vivid contrast to those of years ago, when the whole countryside turned out to see men hanged at Warwick in the open. Then they made the affair a public holiday, and a broadsheet containing the last dying speech and confession sold like hot cakes.
In fact, the Leamington Spa Courier in August 1860 did describe one of these occasions:
About a thousand persons wended their way to the new Gaol, from seven o’clock until ten in the morning. Many of these had walked through the heavy and pitiless rain from the neighbouring towns of Coventry, Banbury, Birmingham and Stratford. Their clothing was covered with mud, and drenching with rain. Nearly the whole of these persons had the appearance of belonging to the lowest classes of society, and, strange to say, the majority of them were women, some of whom had infants in their arms.
Following an Act of Parliament in 1873, executions took place in private behind the walls of the prison. A black flag was hoisted to let everyone know that the act had been carried out, and morbid crowds still gathered just to see the black flag flying. In those first few years, reporters were allowed to witness the executions and so would do their upmost to inform the public of what had happened, as this excerpt of the first private execution in Warwick demonstrates:
At five minutes after eight o’clock the Under Sheriff emerged into the gaol-yard. He was followed by the prisoner, pinioned, of course, and dressed in the ordinary prison suit. A vault had been dug in the yard, some four-feet deep, and over this a plank was placed, on which the prisoner was directed to stand. The white cap was then adjusted and the Chaplain read another prayer. [The prisoner] half unconsciously shook hands with the governor; Smith (the executioner) withdrew the bolt. [The prisoner] fell to the length of the drop and the noose tightened round his neck. There was very little struggle, and after several desperate efforts for breath, in a little under four minutes all was over.
The first gaol in Warwick was a small dungeon in a courtyard at the back of the Shire Hall in Northgate Street. Known as the ‘Black Hole’, it was 18ft 10in underground and measured 21ft in diameter. There were thirty-one steps leading down to it and it was only lit by a small grating. There was a cesspit in the middle and a gutter on one side, where water flowed for both drinking and washing and there could be up to fifty-six prisoners in the hole at a time, usually chained together. It is unknown when it was actually built but was known to be in existence in 1661. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, wrote in his journal of 1661 that, following numerous meetings taking place in Warwick, many of those attending were imprisoned in the Black Hole. The building in which the Black Hole was found was demolished in the late 1700s and a new gaol was built in Barrack Street. This was also closed when Warwick Prison, built at The Cape, was opened in 1860. This was closed in 1917 and the building was demolished in 1934.
The Warwick Assizes were held at the Shire Hall in Northgate Street from the 1750s, and the last cases heard there were in December 2010, when the courts moved to Leamington Spa. The building now houses Warwick Library.
The Police Act of 1839 gave magistrates the authority to form a professional police force. However, it was not a legal requirement and so the Warwickshire magistrates decided to cover only certain parts of the county, mainly the towns. In most rural areas, the law was still carried out by means of the old manorial system. Each year a Court Leet, headed by a High Bailiff, Low Bailiff and a Court Leet Jury, would appoint a headborough and two constables, whose job it was to ensure law and order was kept.
Shire Hall in Northgate, once home to the assizes.
Barrack Street at the back of Shire Hall, once the vicinity of the ‘Black Hole’ and the police station.
Market Place entrance to Shire Hall, now Warwick Library.
Following the County and Borough Police Act of 1856 it became compulsory for the whole of England to be covered by a police force, and the Warwickshire Constabulary was formed on 5 February 1857. Within twenty years, the main towns in Warwickshire, including Warwick, began creating their own individual forces and the first police station was built in Barrack Street. It is no longer there, having been demolished in 1972.
Warwick has very much remained an historic town. Every day visitors flood to visit Warwick Castle – an imposing building which stands on solid rock overlooking the town and was once home to the Earls of Warwick. Built in 1068, it was originally only used as a fortification, but in the seventeenth century Sir Fulke Greville turned it into a country house and the family remained there until 1978, when the castle was purchased by the Tussauds Group.
Warwick Castle from Castle Bridge.
A pensioner at the entrance to Lord Leycester Hospital, early 1900s.
