Month: September 2018

A sailor finds that he’s been sold a parcel of horses**t

Victorian pipe smokers

James Randall had bought a packet of what he believed to be tobacco from someone, possibly a dock worker, at one of the many pubs in and around the City of London. The vendor had torn open the package just enough to allow him to test a sample of the tobacco, and he had handed over 2s for it. Later he discovered that instead a pound and a half of ‘baccy, all he had was a worthless mix of ‘sawdust and horsedung’.

The sailor had been ‘done’ but instead of accepting his bad luck he decided he would try to recover the situation. Later that day he was walking in the Minories in the City, close to its eastern edge, when he encountered a young lad named Thomas Watts. He offered him the parcel of ‘tobacco’ for 2s3d hoping to make a small profit from the deal.

Watts, a ‘respectable’ youth, was unsure, and said no. Randall immediately dropped the price to 1s 9d, but Thomas still wavered. The sailor went to 1s 6d  and Watts caved in. He handed over the money and was about to examine his purchase when a policeman ran up to the pair of them.

PC Hayton (588 City) had watched the transaction and knew Randall as a suspicious individual. He took the parcel and the plug sample of tobacco  fell out soon followed by the worthless mixture of sawdust and manure. The copper quickly established that the boy had been ripped off and instructed Randall to give him his money back. He demurred at first but then complied. As Watts thanked the policeman the seaman took his chance and ran off.

The officer chased him across the City and caught up with him in Finsbury Circus where he arrested him. On the way to the station Randall confessed to knowing his parcel was valueless and so to trying to defraud Thomas. Not surprisingly then when he was produced at the Mansion House Police court Sir Robert Carden committed him for trial.

Randall was tried at the Old Bailey on the 22 October 1855 and found guilty on his own confession, he was 25 years of age. The judge sent him to prison for three months.

[from Reynolds’s Newspaper, Sunday, September 30, 1855]

‘She has been very low spirited lately’: The early casebook of the ‘Ripper’ surgeon reveals the extent of mental illness in London

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One of the most recognisable names in the Whitechapel murder case is that of Dr George Bagster Phillips, H Division’s divisional surgeon. Dr Phillips carried out the post mortem examinations of Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly. He famously noted of Chapman that:

‘the work was that of an expert- or one, at least, who had such knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations as to be enabled to secure the pelvic organs with one sweep of the knife’.

This, and other remarks by doctors examining the victims, have led some to suggest that the murderer was a member of the medical profession (a ‘Dr Jack’) and has fuelled the ‘royal conspiracy’ theory that links the killings to Prince Albert Edward, the grandson of Queen Victoria, and Dr William Gull, her majesty’s surgeon.

For all sorts of reasons many (myself included) dismiss the idea that the killings were carried out by a doctor, but it is possible (probable even) that the murderer has some ‘knowledge of anatomical or pathological examinations’.

Dr Phillips started his career with H Division in 1865 and so these cases, in late September, are from the very beginning of his time in the East End. On Thursday 28 September that year there were three charges of attempted suicide heard at Worship Street Police court and Dr Phillips gave evidence in at least two of them.

James Munday (a 42 year-old french polisher) apparently swallowed oxalic acid in an attempt on his own life. He took the poison because his wife had left him but fortunately he had coughed it all up at the police station after his son had called for help. Dr Bagster Phillips (misreported as ‘Baxter’) told the court that Munday was lucky that he’d swallowed the poison on top of a ‘much larger quantity of some more palatable fluid’ (probably alcohol). His son’s quick think also helped. James was sorry for what he’d done and promised not to repeat it but the magistrate remanded him, just to be safe.

Caroline Cleal – in a separate incident – had also tried to kill herself with oxalic acid. Oxalic acid was used in a variety of applications mostly in cleaning products. It wasn’t as lethal as some other potions but in quantity it could cause death from kidney failure. Caroline was also a french polisher. She was also having problems at home and had bought a pennyworth of the acid at chemist in Whitecross Street. Dr Phillips told the court that such a small amount wouldn’t harm her and the magistrate remanded her for a week so that the police could make some enquiries and keep an eye on her.

Finally that day Ellen Read was brought up charged with trying to cut her own throat with a razor. PC Horne (178H) reported that he had been called to Read’s home in Dorset Street where he found her ‘bleeding frightfully from a wound in her throat’. Dorset Street was perhaps ‘the worst street’ in London and was where the body of Mary Kelly was to be found, brutally mutilated, in November 1888.

Ellen had been depressed her husband told the justice, and he’d tried to take her away for a few days to the country (probably hop picking in Kent, as many Eastenders did) but it hadn’t effected a change in her spirits. Ellen said nothing in court and the magistrate had little choice but the remand her as well.

What this shows us I think is that mental illness was endemic in Victorian London. Alcoholism, poverty, domestic violence and a range of other pressures undoubtedly contributed to making poor people’s lives incredibly challenging. Dr Phillips was provably called to more than one suicide or attempted suicide on a weekly basis and that, along with the street attacks, wife beatings, road traffic accidents, and more deliberate murders, must have inured him to violence by the late 1880s. Whether that prepared him for the horrors perpetrated that summer however, is debatable.

[from The Morning Post, Friday, September 29, 1865]

An open window is an invitation to thieves

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Ellen Dunn was sitting at her desk in the evening, doing her household accounts. She had her receipts and an account book open in front of her, and a bag containing around £12 in cash on the floor beside her chair. The widow lived at 68 Warden Road in Kentish Town and her daughter was in a room upstairs.

At about eight o’clock Mrs Dunn heard a noise in the room. Looking up she watched with horror as the window ‘was thrown open’ and someone entered the room. Ellen ran out of the room to the front door to see who was breaking in but couldn’t get out; someone or something was preventing her from opening her own front door.

She went back into the room and leaned out of the open window and yelled ‘police!’ This brought her daughter running downstairs to see what the matter was. There was no one visible in the street but Mrs Dunn’s bag of money was missing. The next morning the empty bag was found in the front garden – Mrs Dunn realized had been burgled.

Fortunately the police had a witness from within the Dunn’s own household. Amy Sefton was a 14 year-old serving girl, probably very junior, but she proved to be a very capable young woman. She said she had seen a group of lads watching the house just before the robbery had taken place. She saw a boy she recognized as someone who lived locally run away from the house clutching a bag that seemed very similar to the one found that morning.

He took the bag to his mates who were clustered around a lamppost. Using the light it offered the boys peered inside. ‘Here is a go: there is some money!’ one of them cried, clearly delighted with the prize.

Then they removed the cash, stuffed it in their pockets and dashed off. One of them was dispatched to throw away the bag and this is when they spotted Amy watching them. They swore at her but she held her ground and made sure she got a good look at them. This resulted in the police picking up a lad one 17 named William Hine, who was produced at Marylebone Police court on the following day.

Hine was charged (along with several others in absentia) with entering a dwelling house and stealing £12. It was a serious property crime and the magistrate remanded William in custody so the police investigation could continue. The justice made a point of commending Amy for her quick thinking and bravery.

This would be a hard case to prove however; Amy said she would be able to identify William and one or other of the lads but without forensics or any of the money being found on them the police may have struggled to build a case against them. Hine doesn’t feature in the Old Bailey records or in the Digital Panopticon. His absence from both doesn’t mean he wasn’t prosecuted further but without a clear trail I wonder if, on this occasion, the lads got away with it. On thing is likely however: Mrs Dunn would have been careful not to leave her windows open in future.

[from The Standard, Thursday, September 28, 1893]

A curious (and confusing) case of a two bob’ fraudster and his mate.

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There are plenty of cases of fraud that came before the Metropolitan Police courts in the Victorian period. From individual attempts to extort money from gullible ‘punters’ to full-blown and well-organized ‘long firm’ scams, the courts were kept busy with the full gamut of fraudsters. Some had quite elaborate ruses but William Jewell and Joseph Richards simply relied on talking fast and confusing their victims.

Jewell was a 38 year-old waterside labourer from Bethnal Green while Richards was a simply ‘labourer’ from nearby Mile End. In September 1895 both were placed in the dock at the North London Police court on a charge of being ‘suspected persons’ and with attempting to defraud tradesmen. Being ‘suspected’ was a catch-all term which allowed the police to pick up people they thought were up to no good.

Jewell was the main player in this case, Jackson seems to have acted as his accomplice, or look out. The scam went something like this:

Jewell entered a shop (such as Henry Amos’ confectionary shop in Well Street). He put a sixpence on the counter and asked for a pennyworth of sweets. The shopkeeper’s wife served him and  handed over the sweets and 5 pennies in change.

Now Jewell took a penny form his pocket, added it to the pile already there and asked Mrs Amos to please change it for a sixpence. Before she had time to scop up the pennies Jewell said: ‘Give me a shilling instead of the sixpence and the coppers’.

He was trying to confuse the poor lady and would have succeeded in gaining an extra sixpence had not Mr. Amos been listening in. He came in from the back room and Jewell scarpered. The eagle eyed confectioner spotted Jackson just outside the shop as Jewell ran off, he was nonchalantly pretending to read a newspaper.

Unsuccesful here, the pair tried the same ruse at Mrs Muffett’s newsagent’s in Hackney Wick. Again it was Jewell who entered the shop and engaged Mrs Muffett in conversation. He asked for the evening paper (which cost a halfpenny)

and put a shilling on the counter. The newsagent gave him ‘eleven pence halfpenny change’. He then asked for his shilling back and Mrs Muffett obliged, assuming he’d found the 1/2d  for the paper in his pocket. But Jewell pushed the money back over to her and asked her to change it for a florin (a two shilling piece).

She didn’t have one she told him.

‘Then I have to give you a halfpenny’ he replied. ‘No, you have to give me a shilling’ she said, as he’d wanted to get back 2sf rom her. Again his attempt had failed but probably worked on other occasions. Shop assistants had (and have) to be alert  to possible attempts by customers who try to persuade then that that have given them large amounts than they have (‘I gave you a £20 note…’) or accused them of shortchanging them.

In these days of contactless debit transactions and a virtually cashless society we forget sometimes how easy it was to trick someone who is not expecting it.

Mrs Muffett called the police and with Mr Amos help the two men were picked out of a police identification parade. There wasn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute Jackson but Mr Taylor (the duty magistrate) decided there was ample proof of Jewell’s fraudulent intent, and he sent him to prison for three months at hard labour. Three months, for trying to trick two women out of two bob seems pretty harsh to me.

[from The Standard, Friday, September 27, 1895]

A mother who’d be glad to see the back of her quarrelling children

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I am a little late in getting this up today because I’ve been working on the final draft of my new solution to the Jack the Ripper mystery. All the writing is completed but I’ve just had to finish my references and bibliography and get the whole in a format compliant with Amberley’s house rules. This is the boring bit of historical research and writing: reformatting and looking for grammatical mistakes!

It is much more fun to read the old newspapers and delve in the archives for new stories and today I’ve gone back to the London newspapers in September 1888 in the week before the so-called ‘double event’ when the ‘Ripper’ struck twice in one night. On the last night of September 1888 he killed Elizabeth Stride in Berner Street before moving on to murder Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square about an hour later. By killing once in H Division’s patch and then straying over the City border he now had two police forces hunting frantically for any leads that might catch him.

Meanwhile the business of the Metropolitan Police courts went on as normal.

Most domestic violence was between parents and children or husbands and wives (or partners, as not all working class that cohabited were married). At Marlborough Street however a brother was accused of beating up his sister, both being in their early twenties and living at home. John Harrington (a porter)  was actually homeless when he was charged before Mr Newton. His mother and sister had actually moved house to ‘get rid’ of him his sister, Annie, explained.

But Tuesday morning, the 25 September 1888, she’d come home at 2 in the morning from ‘a concert’. Harrington was in the house and tried tried to prevent his mother from letting Annie in. Ellen Harrington was having nothing to do with it however and opened the door to her daughter. John piled into her, calling her names and complaining that she was drunk again and hadn’t given him money she owed him. It ended with him striking her several times.

In court Mrs Harrington declared that she’d had enough of both of them and wished they’d finally leave home. She said she’d be ‘glad to get rid of both son and daughter, and be left in peace to do the best she could’. She lamented that she’d brought them up well and they’d had a good education, her daughter ‘having reached the seventh standard’ but now they only repaid her by quarrelling.

She admitted her daughter was ‘like a maniac’ when she’d been drinking For his part John said his sister had started the fight, and had attacked him with a fork. All he’d done was point out that it was late, she was drunk, and the household had been disturbed by her. The court’s gaoler pointed out that while he’d never seen John before, Annie had been up a few times for disorderly behaviour.

It was a family squabble and it really shouldn’t have reached the courts at all. Mr Newton effectively bashed their heads together and told them to behave themselves in the future. Both Annie and John were  bound over the keep the peace towards each other, and liable for £5 each if they ended up back in his court.

After all in the autumn of 1888 there were much more serious crimes happening in the Victorian capital.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, September 26, 1888]

A man just wants to have Fun, but forgets you always have to pay.

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William Helps was standing watching the concourse at Ludgate Hill railway station when a gentleman attracted his attention. Helps was a station inspector and the man explained that he’s just seen respectably dressed individual appear to steal a book from a book stall. Helps asked where the man was now and the passenger pointed him out as he boarded a third class carriage. The inspector followed him and noticed him hide the book under his coat.

Helps went back to the  stall (W H Smith’s no less) and asked the lad serving there if he’d lost anything.

‘Yes, a shilling number of Fun’, William Robinson replied.

Fun was a humorous, satirical magazine that rivaled the more famous Punch. It had launched in 1861 and offered prose and verse alongside travel writing and reviews of popular theatre and music hall.  It cost just a penny per edition so this must have been a compendium of covers, entitled ‘Essence of Fun’ which sold for a 1s.

Mr Helps approached the man who’d taken the book and confronted him:

‘What have you done with the book?’ he demanded.

‘What book?’

‘Do not misunderstand me – the book you took off the book stall’.

‘I do not know what you mean’ said the man, getting up from his seat and heading off towards W H Smith’s. He started to fumble around under his waistcoat where the book was hidden but Helps was losing patience with him.

‘It is of no use putting it down on the stall again’, he said, ‘you had better give it to me’.

Sheepishly, the man handed it over and said he would happily pay for it but the inspector had him arrested and consequently, a few days later he was summoned to appear at the Guildhall Police court charged with theft.

The man’s name was Henry White and he worked for Pontifex and Co as a coppersmith. He’d previously worked for Price’s candles and he had never been in trouble before in his life. White’s solicitor (Mr Buchanan) assured the court that his client had never intended to steal the copy of Fun but the lad was busy serving customers and he was worried he would miss his train.

It was a poor excuse but the policeman who took him into custody said he was searched and he plenty of money on him so doubted theft was the intention. White had given a correct address, and ‘bore a very respectable character in his neighbourhood’, and so Alderman Whetham was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The magistrate found him not guilty of stealing but instead treated the case as one of unlawful possession. White was fined 10s, which he paid, and walked free from court, poorer but hopefully wiser.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, September 25, 1872]

Ripped trousers and little thanks as a guardsman ignores a drunk’s request to ‘go for the policeman’.

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Frank and the fabulously named Tirquinia Keeling were drunk, and soon quite disorderly. It was a Monday night in Septemebr 1890 and the pair were wandering through Hyde Park with their friend Rose Allsopp, probably after an evening of drinking somewhere nearby.

As can often happen when people have had too much to drink, an argument broke out. Frank and his wife exchanged words, then shouts, then blows. Soon they were wrestling and creating quite a scene, so much so that it attracted the attention of the local bobby on his beat.

PC 319A hoved into view and presumed he saw a man knocking a woman about a bit while another woman intervened from time to time. He moved in to separate the couple but received little thanks for his efforts. Eventually he decided he had to arrest Frank and collared him. Frank resisted and the policeman was in danger of being overpowered when a passing soldier and his mate came to his aid.

Private Clarke of the 2ndbattalion Coldstream Guards ran over to help. Soon another brace of policemen arrived and together they all fought to subdue Frank and his wife. It was quite the bar room brawl, just without the barroom setting. Finally Frank and Tirquinia were under the police’s control and were led off in the direction of a police station.

As the pair were led away Rose piled in to try and affect a rescue. The trio spent an uncomfortable night sleeping off their drinking before being presented before Mr Hannay at Marlborough Street Police court in the morning.

They must have looked dejected in the dock and hopefully shamefaced as well. Private Clarke told the magistrate that when he went aid the policeman Keeling had growled that he was helping the ‘wrong side’. Frank was a musician but had served in the army and expected a fellow soldier to recognize a common enemy. But Clarke was a former copper and so he knew where his loyalties lay.

He had fared badly in the fight though: he had been thrown to the ground, damaged his knee, and tore his trousers. He was most upset about the latter however because he would have to pay for a new pair out of his meager army pay. Mr Hannay thought that was very unfair and asked the inspector on duty ‘to report the matter to the Police Commissioner to see what recompense could be made’ to him. The court had a poor box but it wasn’t meant to be used for that purpose.

As for the Keelings, who refused to give their address but stated that they were musicians (and so were possibly itinerant), he fined them 40seach or a month’s imprisonment. Allsopp was fined 20sor ten days. It doesn’t say whether they paid up or not but they would have had a few hours to find the money as that seems to have been the standard practice. They don’t appear in any records of imprisonment for that or any other year so I imagine they found the money soon enough.

Some form of drunk and disorderly behaviour was by far the most common reason for being arrested and presented before a magistrate in late Victorian London. The courts were dealing with dozens every day, very many more after a weekend or – worst of all – a Bank holiday.

Today is the beginning of freshers’ week at my and many other universities and sadly, I fear there will be plenty of  drunkenness on display. So, if you are about to start your studies this autumn, enjoy freshers but spare a thought for the police and bouncers that are (usually) there to help you get home safely, in one piece, and without upsetting the locals too much. Have fun, but know your limits folks!

[from The Standard, Wednesday, September 24, 1890]

One magistrate and his dog: or a drunken Yorkshireman earns a night in the cells

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Interior of the London Pavilion Music Hall (c.1861)

There is tendency for people to act differently when they are away from home. We let our hair down on holiday for example, and perhaps do things we might not usually do when surrounded by more familiar scenery and faces. London offers visitors the opportunity to be anonymous; to become almost invisible for a few hours. Along with its proliferation of bars and clubs I’m sure this is one of the reasons it features high on the list of destinations for hen nights and stag dos.

I wonder if this helps explain the behaviour of George Camell, who came to London in 1862 and found himself up before the magistrate on a charge of creating a disturbance. Mr Camell, a native of Yorkshire, appeared in the dock at Marlborough Street with his pet dog by his side.

The dog was significant because it was his attempt to enter the newly re-opened (and very popular) London Pavilion Music Hall in Titchborne  Street with his animal, that had led to his arrest. The case was presented by PC Robert Martin (86C) who testified that he’d been stationed outside the Pavilion at 8.30 on the previous Saturday evening (19 September) when Camell had tried to push his way in. The policeman explained to him that he was not allowed in with his hound but Camell, who was drunk, insisted.

This sent Camell into a rage and he challenged the officer to a fight in the street. He was holding his dog on a chain but said he’d fight one handed. PC Martin declined and told him to go home. Camell replied that he’d come all the way from Yorkshire and was determined to enter. Then he’d had to leave his dog outside, the copper told him. In which case would the policeman look after his dog?

No, he would not, said PC Martin. ‘You can fasten it to your button”, suggested Camell, at which point the policeman lost his patience and, deciding things had gone far enough and the man was creating a scene, he marched him off to the police station, where he spent the night.

Camell was bailed to appear at Marlborough Street and brought a solicitor that had known him for years to speak for him in court. He told the magistrate (Mr Tyrwhitt) that his client was incapable of such conduct’.

‘Yes, when he is sober’, Mr Tyrwhitt agreed. Not when he was drunk, as the police had proved, with witnesses, that he was.

Camell had come straight to the Pavilion from dinner where he’d presumably had plenty to drink. He claimed to be a gentleman and a magistrate and gave his address as New Hall, near Hartley (which may be on the Yorkshire and Lancashire borders). He’d been locked up for several hours and since he’d only made a disturbance and not actually fought with PC Martin the justice decided he’d probably been punished enough. He released him.

As for Camell he said:

‘I never was in a police court in such a position before, and I shall never forget it’.

His appearance in court was clearly something of an embarrassment and he must have hoped it would not make the pages of the Yorkshire press.  Sadly for him his anonymity in London didn’t save him from local scrutiny. The Bradford Observer carried the story (lifted entirely as written) in its Thursday edition with the ‘headline’: ‘A Yorkshire Magistrate in the London Police Court’. Eeh by gum…

[from The Morning Post , Tuesday, September 23, 1862; The Bradford Observer , Thursday, September 25, 1862]

No sign of the garrotting panic but a Victorian ‘Wonga’ scam is exposed

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Prompted by a facebook post from the Police historian Neil Bell I decided today to go back to 1862 to see if there was any hint of that year’s big crime story in the Police court reportage. 1862 was the year that Sir Hugh Pilkington MP was attacked by robbers on his way home from the Houses of Parliament. He was attacked from behind, throttled (‘garrotted’) and robbed. It was a form of highway robbery (‘mugging’ we would probably call it) but it sparked a moral panic about returning ‘ticket of leave’ criminals and the perceived ‘softness’ of the criminal justice system.

The panic died done fairly quickly and historians have shown that in reality street crime was no more prevalent in 1862 than it was in years either side of that; it was the reaction of the police, public and government to the press coverage that was the real story, not the incidents of ‘garrotting’ themselves.

Plus câ change.

Meanwhile over at Worship Street Police court things were a little more mundane. No garrotting or otherwise dangerous street crime here, just a case of unlicensed pawnbrokers. It’s still interesting however, as we learn much more about the everyday life of the Victorian city through these snippets of ‘real life’.

William Murray and James Spriggs were both brought up as offenders against the Excise Act. The prosecution – led by officers from the Inland Revenue – alleged that the men had been carrying out the business of pawnbrokers without have the required license to do so. The pair were trading as chandlers (sellers of all sorts of cheap goods) rather than pawnbrokers, but were proven to have extended loans to local people in the East End in exactly the same way as ‘brokers operated.

It was a well executed investigation and both men were duly convicted. The magistrate, Mr Leigh, handed down fines of £12 10s plus costs to each man, the minimum he was obliged to levy. Each was warned that a failure to pay would result in them going to prison for a month.

The excisemen reported that they had been investigation many more instances of this sort of offence in recent months, and mostly in East London. These two shopkeepers were ‘ostensibly’ chandlers in Bethnal Green – hardly a well paid occupation – but both could afford to employ a lawyer to defend them. They were doing very well out of this sideline to the day job.

The court was told that there were plenty of ‘leaving shops’ in East London where the poorest could get short or medium term loans at very high interest by pledging their possessions as security. The magistracy were aware of it and two justices in particular, Mr Beard and Mr Abbott, condemned the practice and assured the public that they would be prepared to inflict the maximum penalty of £50 on offenders.

It strikes me that leaving shops were operating very much like the high interest pay day loan companies like Wonga, which today offer (or used to offer in Wonga’s case) much needed cash but at huge cost in terms of interest. These companies profit from the very poorest in society and the same practice, albeit a less sophisticated version, was taking place in the 1860s.

Plus câ change, eh?

[from The Standard, Monday, September 22, 1862]