Warwickshire Murders E-Book

Kevin Turton

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Warwickshire has seen its fair share of murder down the centuries. This latest collection explores notorious crimes from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using contemporary documents, trial transcripts and newspaper accounts to examine cases that gripped both the county and the nation. Among the stories included here are the case of Edwin James Moore, who set fire to his mother after an argument over supper at Leamington Spa in 1907; the Coventry bombings in 1939, for which two men were executed in 1940; and the case of Thomas Ball, who was poisoned by his wife in 1848. She was later tried and executed in Coventry and was the last woman to be executed in public.

Leseprobe

Warwickshire

MURDERS

Kevin Turton

First published in 2007 by Sutton Publishing

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2012

All rights reserved

© Kevin Turton, 2010, 2012

The right of Kevin Turton, 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 8437 2

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8436 5

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Introduction & Acknowledgements

1. A Deadly Secret

Nuneaton, 1832

2. A Question of Insanity

Spernal, 1842

3. A Case of Poisoning

Nuneaton, 1849

4. The Price of Jealousy

Priors Hardwick, 1872

5. Of Witches & Wizards

Long Compton, 1875

6. The Deadly Midwife

Ettington, 1897

7. A Deadly Engagement

Baddesley Ensor, 1902

8. The Bicycle Lamp Murders

Coventry, 1906

9. The Price of Herring

Leamington, 1907

10. A Grudge Killing

Coventry, 1908

11. A Marriage Made in Hell

Harbury, 1922

12. The Radio Ham

Ladbroke, 1926

13. The Bombing of Broadgate

Coventry, 1939

14. The Witchcraft Murder

Upper Quinton, 1945

15. The Ring of Bells Murder

Coventry, 1945

16. A Wartime Argument

Coventry, 1950

17. The Silencing of Penelope Mogano

Coventry, 1954

18. The Death of Innocence

Fillongley, 1955

19. Murderous Thoughts

Coventry, 1955

20. A Moment of Madness

Coventry, 1957

21. The Price of Lodgings

Rugby, 1958

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Murder is a heinous crime. It strips individuals of both their privacy and their dignity. Lives are often laid bare in open court and penalties inflicted on the perpetrators of such crimes are often considered by the public at large as being derisory. This perception, of course, is borne out by the numerous bar-room conversations up and down the country and the often sensationalised reporting by numerous newspapers. We all, at times, believe that courts are far too lenient and penalties not severe enough when it comes to murder. But unfortunately for most there is no direct access to the facts of each individual case because we cannot all attend court. This in turn means our judgements are flawed. We base our opinions on the columns of newsprint we read or the few minutes given over to cases by the television news channels. We are not able to be objective simply because we are not in possession of the full facts.

There are, as we all know, two sides to any argument and it follows there are also two sides to any murder case. Yet when it comes to the most serious of crimes, that of taking a life, we tend not to hear or read of the true and pertinent facts: those facts that influence juries and in turn dictate the severity of the sentences handed down by judges. Instead we are often swept along by a tide of journalistic hysteria that in turn clouds our own usually well-balanced views of life, almost forcing us to share, and agree, with the words on the page. But it has not always been like this.

When murder was a capital offence, which means the whole of history and the first sixty-odd years of the twentieth century, reporting bias was unheard of. Sensational headlines were not the common lot of newspapers and people were given greater access to accurate information through their local and national press. At a time when those that did kill stood to lose their lives on the scaffold, perhaps this stark, if brutal, reality ensured less bias and demanded a more sober and reflective level of reporting, though I doubt it.

The world, if we need reminding, was a very different place throughout this period. Certainly up to the turn of the nineteenth century life was cheap and severe penalties awaited those that transgressed against society’s laws. Murder was only one of a range of offences that demanded the ultimate sacrifice and all were well reported by the press corps. Yet murder was still the crime that ate up more column inches than anything else the courts ever dealt with. There was a very real appetite among the reading public throughout this period for stories that reflected the darker side of life. As education spread across the country and more and more people came out of schools with the necessary reading skills to increase newspaper sales, so these new-found subscribers to the printed page began to make demands. Education had created an environment in which knowledge, not only of world events but also of local events, was gaining ever-increasing importance. As the population at large developed its reading skills, therefore, so it began to demand of those who produced the newsprint a greater level of accuracy. This then led to almost verbatim reporting of murder trials at a local level. With no other distractions, no television and no radio (limited until at least the 1940s), this type of narrative began to capture an audience hitherto unheard of and, for once, an audience whose views and opinions were not formed by headlines emblazoned across the front page. It was this public that first saw details of the crimes I have chosen to include here.

In Warwickshire Murders I have deliberately only chosen those cases that dominated the county and only cases where a guilty verdict would send the killer to the scaffold. It has been a long and extremely interesting journey. En route I have met, figuratively speaking, with a number of characters that certainly lived out their time on the darker side of life. Many were extremely unpleasant and deserving of nothing but contempt, but there are others for whom I can only feel deep sympathy. All played out their lives, albeit for a short period, in the public arena of a courtroom and all have a story to tell. I have endeavoured, therefore, to breathe life back into them so that they may tell their story a second time. I hope you are moved by much of what you read but above all else I hope you experience a similar journey.

I should like to thank the library staff at Warwick, Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon, all of whom helped me source relevant material for the book. Likewise Warwickshire Records Office, and a long list of anonymous newspaper reporters whose attention to detail has proved inestimable. My thanks also go to authors past and present whose work has aided my own. They include Perfect Murder by Stephen Knight and Bernard Taylor; Murder by Witchcraft by Donald McCormick; Warwickshire Tales of Mystery & Murder by Betty Smith; Midland Murders and Mysteries by Barrie Roberts; Terrible Murder of a Policeman by Joseph Poland; The Encyclopaedia of Executions by John J. Eddleston; Warwickshire Advertiser and Leamington Gazette; Coventry Evening Telegraph; and Cause of Death by Keith D. Wilson. All pictures are from the author’s collection unless otherwise stated. Every attempt has been made to trace and contact the original owners of any other images used in this book where relevant. If copyright has been inadvertently infringed it is unintentional.

1

A DEADLY SECRET

Nuneaton, 1832

Mary Green, alias Polly Button, moved her family to the outskirts of Nuneaton at some point in 1828, taking a house at what was then known as Abbey End, a small terrace at the bottom of Abbey Street just outside the main town. Behind her lay two broken relationships and with her the product of those failed affairs in the shape of four children. Whether or not their by now absent fathers contributed to the family purse is not known, nor is Mary’s occupation, though it is likely she had worked in the textile industry in one guise or another and quite possibly turned occasionally to prostitution. Money in the Green household, however, was always in short supply and Mary constantly sought a benefactor to ease her financial pressures. By the dawn of 1829 she had succeeded in finding a likely candidate in the form of near neighbour John Danks.

Danks was married but had no children and was no doubt an enthusiastic partner. The affair was hidden from prying eyes for much of that year, but by the autumn Mary had found herself pregnant for a fifth time. Unable to hide the relationship any longer their clandestine meetings were inevitably uncovered and Danks was forced to acknowledge both his involvement and his culpability. When Mary gave birth to baby Jane in the early months of 1830 the notion of paternity seemed to sit well on his shoulders and he readily agreed to make regular weekly payments towards his daughter’s upkeep. Perhaps the affair ought to have ended at that point. But it did not.

The view from Abbey End today looking towards Abbey Street. (Author’s Collection)

Abbey Street today. In the nineteenth century this is where two-thirds of Nuneaton’s population lived. The Burgage, which lies behind the buildings on the left, is built up now but was once open land owned and leased by the abbey. (Author’s Collection)

Over the next eighteen months or so they continued to meet. How regularly those meetings took place or how important Danks was to Mary is unknown, but certainly by the winter of 1831 she was pregnant with her sixth child and the finger of guilt was again pointed in his direction. Unfortunately for Mary this was one baby John Danks was not prepared to allow into the world.

At the back of the terraced row where Mary lived lay open fields known locally as the Burgage (today Burgage Walk); a narrow track led from the back yards to a stile and, some way beyond, a gate. From its position straddling the track the gate probably marked a sort of boundary or marked the entrance to what was known as Astley’s Hovel. This was simply a ramshackle, dilapidated, mean dwelling but a place where the couple often met. On 18 February 1832 at about 8 p.m., with Mary possibly some eight months pregnant and clearly showing, Danks decided they should meet for one last time. Not wanting to be seen at her door he hid in the yard and threw a handful of stones at her kitchen window to catch her attention, something he had done many times in the past. Mary, of course, knew the instant the stones hit the glass who had thrown them and had no hesitation in going out to meet him. Unfortunately for Danks the meeting in the yard was seen by Mary’s eldest daughter, 18-year-old Elizabeth, who had gone out minutes earlier to meet her cousin. From their hidden vantage point in a nearby passageway they saw Danks emerge from the shadows and watched as the two talked. It was a cold night, and after a few minutes of conversation Mary ran back to the house to fetch a shawl and the two went off towards the Burgage.

At about seven the next morning a Nuneaton draper, Richard Beasley, who owned a field near to where Mary had last been seen heading, found her heavily bloodstained body. It lay face down in the centre of the narrow track some 15yds away from the hovel. She was clearly dead. As there was nothing he could do for Mary he sent his manservant off in search of the police and a surgeon and waited by the body. Police presence in the shape of constable to the parish, Joseph Haddon, was on the scene within the hour and here the parish was very lucky. Haddon was no average policeman. He took his role in the fledgling police force extremely seriously. Once Mary’s body had been removed to her own home he closed off the area and began a thorough search of the ground around where she had been found. In modern-day parlance he did his utmost to secure the scene.

According to local surgeon, Dr Bond, Mary had been attacked with a knife; she had been battered on the left side of her head and her throat cut in three different places causing her to lose a great amount of blood. From her position on the track where she had been found, which was on the Abbey End side of the gate leading to the hovel, she had also survived the attack long enough to attempt to reach home. The evidence for this was borne out by the blood trail Constable Haddon discovered, which stretched from where her body lay back along the track, over the gate and into the hovel itself. Piecing all the evidence together he was able to show that Mary had been attacked inside the hovel, where she had sustained most of her injuries, and quite probably again by the gate. The comprehensive search he then carried out revealed a button torn off during the attack and two clear footprints in cow dung that covered much of the ground where the greatest staining was found. The significance of the footprints was that they were of both the left and right foot, from the same man, and each imprint showed that a nail was missing from each sole.

The outer wall of Warwick prison today. All public executions took place on this street. (Author’s Collection)

Believing that Mary had probably been murdered by someone she knew, someone close to her, Haddon then began questioning those who lived around her. The neighbours did not disappoint. They were quick to point the finger in John Danks’s direction and the old constable was easily swayed. He arrested Danks some hours later a mile or so from the scene, and after taking him into the Red Lion pub outside Nuneaton charged him with murder.

Danks, of course, denied all knowledge. He had sustained no bloodstaining, had no murder weapon, and argued that he had no cause to commit murder. Haddon did not believe him and after walking him back to the police lock-up had his clothes taken away. Examination revealed that Danks wore two waistcoats, one of which had recently had a button replaced, and a pair of shoes, one covered in dried cow dung. Closer inspection of the shoes also revealed the missing nails on the soles. Haddon took them to the murder scene and after making a second imprint beside that of the first two realised that he had an identical match. There could be little doubt in his mind that it was an open and shut case.

A map showing the location of Warwick prison, 1851. (Author’s Collection)

St Mary’s Church, Warwick. Danks would have attended his own memorial service here before being executed. (Author’s Collection)

So it proved. At the beginning of March 1832 Danks finally confessed. Possibly finding his guilt too burdensome a load to carry he made an impromptu statement to the village curate, Mr King. This found its way to Constable Haddon and after a brief meeting Danks reiterated all he had told the young clergyman for Haddon to record. According to the statement he eventually made he had murdered Mary in a fit of anger.

We walked across the grazing piece by the foot road, and thence to Astley’s hovel. We was in the hovel about a quarter of an hour together, when I up with my fist and struck her on the left temple and knocked her down. I fell at her back and cut her once. She hooted very loudly. I cut her again a second time and stopped her hooting. I was quite sure she was done for. I got up, come out of the hovel, and got over the gate. I walked along the road leading to Abbey Street. When I got about one hundred yards from the hovel, I thought I heard a man behind me. I turned myself round but saw no one. I shut my knife and threw it over the hedge into the wheat field. I then made the best of my way to the top of Abbey End and home. I washed my hands and went to bed.

It was a confession that would lead him to the gallows.

The trial opened at Warwick on Friday 30 March 1832 before Sir J. Parke. For Danks it was merely a procession of witnesses, all of whom damned him. The knife he used to carry out the murder was located. Bloodstaining had been discovered on the button the constable had found, also on Danks’s trousers; the soles of his shoes were an irrefutable match to the imprints in the field; Mary’s daughter Elizabeth confirmed her sighting of him, and his wife offered up no alibi. The only moot point of any note was whether or not Mary Green had been alive when he left her inside the hovel. Had she subsequently struggled to walk the 15yds or so in the direction of home before finally expiring, or had Danks attacked a second time beside the gate and dealt the killer blow there? He argued he had not and the surgeon, Dr Bond, agreed. He told the court that in his opinion she could very well have struggled on alone for a brief time. Constable Haddon disagreed with them both, citing the medical evidence given to the coroner, which showed that despite Danks’s insistence that he had cut her twice, there were three cuts to her throat. But at the end of the day it mattered not. The jury returned a guilty verdict after less than five minutes’ deliberation. After donning the black cap and passing sentence of death the learned judge gave his final and damning condemnation.

Your guilt appears as clear from the evidence in this case as if we had seen it with our own eyes, that you had induced her to go to the place where you have been before carrying on your wicked intercourse with her, and that she went when she suspected nothing of this kind from you, you there betrayed her cruelly and ungratefully, and committed that crime, which you had before designed in your heart, and inflicted upon her instant death. In the whole course of my experience, I never heard a case in which so much brutality and cruelty has been evinced. . . .

2

A QUESTION OF INSANITY

Spernal, 1842

William Crowley was considered by those who knew him to be quite wealthy. Living at Spernal, which lies on the River Arrow, some 3 miles north of Alcester, he had decided while still a young man to become a farmer, and this course had proved to be extremely profitable. The powerful Throckmorton family, Warwickshire landowners, offered him the tenancy of a farm on the outskirts of the village in about 1790 and later that same year he married. The marriage produced a family of seven before his wife died, possibly in childbirth, in about 1812. With a large family and what was effectively a smallholding to run he quickly remarried and by the late 1830s, when he accepted a second farm, had added another five children to the family roll-call. Life for the Crowleys ought to have been as comfortable as it was prosperous, but while William Crowley had been blessed with wealth he had not been blessed with virtue. He was, by all accounts, a mean-spirited man who had no time for any of his children, except one, and tended to make life thoroughly miserable for most of those around him. It was only to his youngest son Joseph that he paid any attention, and as the boy grew older it was to him that control of the two farms passed. Almost half the family were certified insane and all the daughters, of which there were six, were turned out of the house as soon as they had reached an age at which he deemed them able to care for themselves. Disowned, stripped of all financial resources, they inevitably fell on the parish, which was forced to administer poor relief and on occasion drag Crowley into court to demand that he pay something towards their upkeep. By the end of 1842 only his wife, the youngest son, Joseph, and two servants remained living with him at the farmhouse outside Spernal, and his life was under serious threat from the last member of the family to have been evicted.

Today Spernal is just a tiny hamlet of three or four houses surrounded by farmland. (Author’s Collection)

James Crowley was 30 years old when he was ordered by his father to leave the house forever. The blood feud had been raging for over two years and when James left, in the spring of 1842, to go and lodge at the blacksmith’s house some 300yds away, he promised to kill the old man. It was a threat his father took extremely seriously, although for some strange reason, despite this threat, he still gave his estranged son an allowance of £1 per week, a saddle and a horse for his use. James, now living alone, was far from enamoured of his father’s sudden show of magnanimity; rather the reverse. He believed the allowance to be derisory and in an attempt to force an increase published a sixteen-page pamphlet outlining his grievances and detailing the family feud. This piece of polemic rant he then distributed far and wide. It had no effect. Everyone living within a reasonable radius of Spernal knew well enough what William Crowley was like but they also knew what could be done with a weekly allowance of £1. Sympathy was a scant commodity when for most money was in short supply.

While all this was going on William organised a defence against what he believed would be a very real attempt to kill him. Among the labour force working on his farms was a man named William Tilsley. He was a tall, stout man of 20, married with two children and in need of the work. He accepted an offer to become a constable and live in on the Crowley farm when needed. The job he was being invited to take on was essentially that of bodyguard, but he felt he knew the family well and despite the threat posed by James believed it was mostly nothing but hot air. He was very wrong.

On 22 December 1842 Tilsley had his first taste of family conflict. In a sudden burst of anger James stormed into the farmhouse and in a bitter verbal exchange with his father over money reiterated his intention to kill him if things did not change. The old man, incensed by the outburst and intent on the status quo remaining as it was, ordered Tilsley to go seek his son out the following day. He wanted James to see the power he could wield and the threat his newly appointed constable offered. It worked. Tilsley told James in no uncertain terms that he was no longer welcome at the farm and that he was to look elsewhere for his extra money. Had William Crowley stuck to his word then quite possibly the tension between father and son would have eased. Unfortunately, whether influenced by his wife or not, Tilsley’s good work was all undone when William offered James an olive branch. It was Christmas and perhaps he felt he ought to offer up the hand of friendship. James was invited to return to the farm on Christmas Day for breakfast.

James, of course, had no intention of burying the hatchet. When he arrived at the farmhouse at a little after eight on a cold Christmas morning any good intentions he had set out with were left on the doorstep. Breakfast was a war of words. Tilsley, who had been ordered to attend, was forced to intervene more than once, much to James’s chagrin and breakfast eventually ended in bitterness and acrimony. But this time James was not to be deterred from exacting revenge for what he saw as a life of resentment.

Returning to his lodgings he changed into his Sunday best, collected a shotgun from the cupboard, and stormed back to the farm. Inside the house his mother saw him crossing the fields and without too much persuading forced her husband upstairs. They heard the windows shatter and waited. But outside the trusty Constable Tilsley had also been alerted. Before James could force an entry the big constable ordered him to put his weapon on the ground. James merely turned the shotgun on him and fired. The shot hit the young policeman in the left eye and blew out his brains. He was dead by the time he hit the floor. James then calmly threw the gun to the ground, walked over to the stables, saddled his horse and rode away.

For James there was never going to be any dispute over his culpability and he knew it. As the fatal shot was fired it was seen by at least two other farm labourers who arrived on the scene just too late to influence the outcome. James, of course, had only two options open to him at that point – surrender or run. He chose to do the latter. After arriving in Stratford-upon-Avon by early afternoon he hitched a ride on the mail coach to Shipston on Stour. From there he travelled to Shrewsbury, where he lingered for a few days, certainly long enough to write letters to a woman in Washwood Heath near Birmingham; a woman he had, on occasion, cohabited with and who had no hesitation in handing the correspondence to the police. From there it is believed James travelled to London and then to America where he arrived in early summer.

Meanwhile, back at the farm Tilsley’s body was initially carried into a nearby barn where it was later examined by surgeon, William Morris. This was a purely academic exercise on his part as Tilsley had died the instant the shot hit him in the eye. Morris was able to be precise in that view, the damage to the back of the man’s head being so extensive that it left absolutely no doubt. He then organised the body’s removal to the Marlborough’s Head Inn at Studley to await the coroner’s arrival.

The inquest opened on 27 December before Stratford-upon-Avon coroner, Mr Hunt. With no doubt as to the identity of the killer the court procedure was one of routine rather than inquiry. Various neighbours testified to being witness to the family feud over the months leading up to Christmas and of the known antipathy between father and son. John Nicholls, 14, and his labourer partner, neighbour Joseph Street, were the two witnesses to the murder and, as expected, their testimony was damning. At the end of the day’s proceedings the ‘guilty of murder’ verdict was returned and the search for James began.

It was never realised that he had taken ship to the American continent. As far as the police were concerned he was presumed to be somewhere in the south of England. They had no reason to believe that he had fled Warwickshire with any significant quantity of money. Everything they knew of the murder suggested it had been a spontaneous act by a disillusioned and angry son who had simply killed the wrong man. In part they were correct. Tilsley had never been the intended victim, but premeditated it most certainly was. James Crowley not only had changed into his Sunday best before returning to the farmhouse that Christmas morning, he had also packed his saddlebags and prepared his horse. But without this intelligence the belief that he could not afford to flee far was reasonable. So was the assumption that he would attempt to disappear in the capital city – it was large enough and dark enough to hide anyone. London’s Bow Street police, with this thought in mind issued a statement and description in The Times two days after the inquest.

WANTED

James Crowley, 5 feet 9 inches high, stout made, has a mark or seam over one of his eye-brows, good looking, and of gentlemanly appearance, and when last seen was dressed in a dark cloth coat, black shining boots and leather leggings. After committing the murder he absconded, taking with him a horse of the following description: A bright bay, switch tail, nearly thorough bred, one hip down, black legs, ewe-necked, and about 15 hands 1 inch high. A reward of £20 will be paid for apprehension of the murderer.

William Tilsley’s funeral took place on the same day. His body had been returned to the family home at Sambourne after the inquest and after a further two days of mourning was carried in procession to the churchyard at Coughton. Large crowds lined the route and according to the Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser it was an extremely moving and painful experience for all. The newspaper also made an appeal to those who had stood in the cold and sung hymns to put their hands in their pockets and donate money; Tilsley had left behind a wife and two children who had no means of support unless they could elicit charity from whatever quarter, a sobering thought and no doubt one local people reacted to, but as the crowds dispersed and the service drew to a close they possibly thought more of justice than benevolence. Unfortunately for the Tilsley family justice was going to be some two years away and for William Crowley, for whom the shot was really intended, it came too late. He died some months later.

Sambourne village green. (Author’s Collection)

St Peter’s Church, Coughton, where William Tilsley’s funeral was held. (Author’s Collection)

The search for James Crowley began to peter out as the year went on and by the summer of 1843, while he was still obviously a wanted man, there were no active enquiries being made and the case slipped from the public arena. But, inexplicably, as the year drew to a close and his safety seemed assured, he made a decision to return to England. Exactly why is not known. Certainly he never explained himself, but he appeared to have been resolute in deciding the time had come to pay for his passage home, though home was not to be in Warwickshire. When he finally set foot back in England he chose Chester as the town in which to make a new start. It is thought that he took lodgings there in the summer of 1844 and, had he continued to keep a low profile, changed his name and stayed incognito, he would probably have remained free for the rest of his life. Unfortunately James did none of these things. At some point that year it appears he wrote a letter to someone in his family. That letter gave away his location and on 14 December he was arrested and formally charged with the murder of William Tilsley. He made no denial and within twenty-four hours of his arrest had confessed, though without any great detail as to how and why.

The trial opened before Mr Justice Maule almost four months later, on Friday 4 April 1845 at Warwick. When the judge entered the court to take his seat at 9.30 in the morning it was to find every available space occupied and a noisy crowd outside still desperate to find a way in. Such was the interest in the case that people had travelled from miles around both to see and hear the defendant. James Crowley, however, seemed unperturbed by all the interest, and after a brief glance around the packed courtroom took his place at the bar at a little after 10 a.m. and, in a low voice that betrayed no emotion, pleaded not guilty. During his incarceration he had taken sound advice as to his defence from various quarters, and successfully gained the services of Mr Hill QC, in the hope that a way could be found to keep him off the scaffold. It had been agreed by all parties that the only avenue open to them was insanity. If Mr Hill were able to show that the defendant’s actions had been those of a man whose mental state had been severely unhinged then there was a chance, albeit a slim one.