It took quite a long time for Arthur Joyce to be brought before the magistrate at Woolwich Police Court. On the night of the 25 July the confectioner, who had a business at Shooter’s Hill in south-east London, was in bed when he heard a scream of ‘murder’ outside his window. When these were followed by several more he leapt out of bed, pulled on some clothes, grabbed his revolver and headed out into the street.

He soon saw a man ‘savagely beating a woman’ and shouted to him to stop. When the man turned his anger on Joyce the tradesman fired his pistol five times in the air to, as he later explained, ‘to attract the attention of the police’.

Immediately after the incident Joyce was brought before the nearest police court but any charges against him (for firing a gun) were dismissed by the magistrate. Presumably on that occasion his worship felt this vigilante act, while not exactly legal, was appropriate and in pursuit of a higher goal.

However, Joyce had no license for his revolver and this was an offence which came under the jurisdiction of the Inland Revenue in 1888. As a result a summons was issued for the confectioner to appear again and on 29 September 1888 he was up before Mr Fenwick at Woolwich.

The prosecution was brought by the Commissioners of the Inland Revenue in the person of a Mr Power who called Joyce’s neighbour, Frederick Hoare, to testify. He had seen Joyce running excitedly up the street, blood coming from a wound he had received from the wife beater. In defence Joyce’s lawyer told the court that his client was a ‘respectable tradesman’ and ‘could not be expected to take out a license for a revolver which was intended solely for protection in his own house’.

Mr Power was sympathetic to the confectioner’s situation but pressed his case; there had been a number of similar incidents he said, and several complaints, so he must insist on a fine. I rather suspect that while the magistrate agreed to the legal truth of the matter he also felt that Joyce had acted with honourable intent. He fined him 1s with 2s costs, possibly the minimum he could so that ‘justice’ could be done without unduly penalising the actions of a ‘have a go hero’.

We should remember that this was London in 1888 in the midst of ‘autumn of terror’ when the Whitechapel murderer killed at least five women in the streets of East London. One of the debated ‘facts’ of the ‘Ripper’ case is that no one seems to have heard anything as the killer struck and it has been said that cries of ‘murder!’ were so common that nobody would have reacted anyway. Well, perhaps Arthur Joyce, had he lived in Whitechapel, might have bothered.

[from The Morning Post, Monday, October 01, 1888]