Tag: love

A ‘John Major’ in court: The Bermondsey Fortune Telling Case of 1880

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I do enjoy it when historical research throws up well-known modern names in unconnected situations. The ‘John Major’ who is the subject of this story has probably no connection whatsoever to the former Conservative Prime Minister, but who knows? After all ‘our’ John Major was born in Surrey (in 1943) to relatively humble parents (one of which had been a music hall performer).

The John Major who found himself before the magistrate at Southwark Police court in 1880 hailed from Ambrose Street, Bermondsey, on the Surrey side of the Thames. He was a 36 year-old print seller but in early April 1880 he was charged with fraud.

In fact he was accused of ‘obtaining sums of money from various persons in different parts of the country, by pretending to tell their fortunes’. John Major then, was a fortune teller and it seems he styled himself,

‘Methveston, the Great Seer, Philosopher and Astrologer’

And he promised to:

‘reveal your future complete, with fate and marriage, family, friends, etc.; what part to travel or voyage to, and other particulars to buyers of three prints, [price] 31 stamps’.

In addition Major advertised ‘Talismanic charms’ at 17 stamps, ‘Direction for making a red magnetic present, causing the visit of lovers’ for 31 stamps.

It was quite a comprehensive service Major was offering and one suspects that there were plenty of people gullible enough to believe that a love charm or a promise of a fortune being told was worth sending the print seller a parcel of postage stamps for (today’s equivalent of using PayPal one presumes).

Sadly, it seems that when Major’s claims failed to materialize some of those dupes by his advertisements complained, and some went directly to Scotland Yard. Since he’d included his address on his adverts (48 Ambrose Street) it wasn’t hard to track him down, and the detective division launched an investiagtion.

A genuine seer might have foretold the involvement of the police and have taken suitable action but a charlatan like John Major was no Nostradamus. Inspector Fox duly investigated, and set a trap. Sergeant Wells (M Division) sent Methveston 31 stamps and received ‘three worthless prints of his “Nativity”, all of which were false and complete rubbish’.

The police arrived at Ambrose Street and searched his rooms. They found ‘nearly a cartload’ of  “Books of Futurity” and evidence that he’d spent almost £30 buying advertising space in regional newspapers.

Major was represented by a lawyer in court, a Mr Ody, who said his client ‘was no fraud’ and only sold prints. Mr Bridge, the sitting magistrate, was advised by the police that they had identified a number of witnesses and would like time to bring them to London. The magistrate granted them four days to do so and remanded Major in custody till then.

It must have taken the police longer than this and so Major was remanded on more than one occasion, but on 24 April he was back in court to face his accusers.  There more details emerged as to the material he was selling, and what the ‘complete rubbish’ was that sergeant Wells had received for his 31 stamps.

This was in fact:

‘a letter containing three pictures, telling him he would get married to a rich woman, and lead a happy life’ as well as ‘other matters concerning love, etc.’

In total Inspector Fox and the sergeant removed all sorts of ‘circulars, books, and papers’ from Ambrose Street, which they brought to court. These included papers ‘inscribed with texts form the Bible, 9,000 handbills, postcards, and letters addressed to various people in the country’, ‘a large number of stamps;’, and ‘fortune-telling books’.

A police inspector from Northampton – Thomas Swain – appeared in court to testify to knowing the man as a convicted rogue and vagabond at Daventry in 1870, where the magistrate there had given him a month at hard labour. He had also attended the Old Bailey in October 1877 to see Major sent away for 18 months for obtaining money by false presences. This was enough evidence for Mr Slade (who was on the rota instead of Mr Bridge that week). He committed Major to take his trial at the Surrey Quarter Sessions as a rogue and vagabond.

[from Lloyd’s Illustrated Newspaper, Saturday 4 April 1880; Lloyd’s Illustrated Newspaper, Friday 24 April 1880]

NB: I’m not doubting Inspector Swain’s testimony but I can find no John Major appearing at the Old Bailey in 1877 (or indeed any year) for fraud. In fact no one in the October sessions for 1877 comes close to Major in terms of his MO. However it may be that his trial record was not printed and so has not survived, or that Swain was talking about the Middlesex Sessions of the Peace, not the Central Criminal court. I don’t have access (not from home anyway) to the Surrey sessions so I cannot (in lockdown) find out what happened to Major hereafter. I suspect however, that if convicted (as seems likely) he would have served another couple of years at most for his offending.

 

 

‘So after getting all you could out of him, you walked off with someone else?’: Love, music and discord in Lambeth

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The path of true love does not always run smoothly, and when things go wrong love can quickly turn to animosity. James Gray had been courting Georgina Hastings for three years, bringing her gifts and acting as a security for some of her purchases.

One of these was a pianoforte that she needed for her music lessons. Officially Georgina’s music tutor was guarantor for the piano but in reality it was understood that it was Gray that had undertaken to keep up repayments should Georgina miss any. She worked as a concert singer and she was a very attractive young woman, both of which meant that she was not short of admirers.

At some point her love for James cooled and someone else replaced him in her affections. When he found out James took his rejection badly.

After an evening’s work at the theatre Georgina came home around midnight to her rooms at 22 Lambeth Square to find the piano and several items of her clothing missing. She spoke to her landlady (Ellen Hare) and discovered that James had been round and cleared them out. Hare had given him the key after he convinced her that the property was his to take away. Georgina went to the police to get warrant for Gray’s arrest and on 1 August 1854 the couple were reunited in Lambeth Police court.

Gray was represented in court by a lawyer, Mr Wontner, who was to go on to serve as a police court magistrate later in the century. He established that Miss Hastings did not own the piano and that Gray was her de facto guarantor. He also prompted her to agree that the couple were to be married before she had ‘kicked him off for another lover’.

‘I don’t know what you mean by kicking him off’, Georgina replied, ‘but I suppose I had a right to change my mind if I thought proper’.

‘Yes, undoubtedly’, responded the lawyer, ‘but my client is a mason, and would have made you a good husband; and after three year’s courtship, I think it was quite time your loves were cemented’.

By now there was widespread chuckling in the court, though at who’s expense it is hard to judge. Georgina was unmoved, ‘that may be your opinion’ she said (it clearly wasn’t hers).

Mr Wonter continued, outlining the sums of money (amounting to around £100) that James had given his lover either in cash or presents over the three years of their relationship. Georgian challenged this admitting only that Gray had provided her with ‘five, ten, and sometimes fifteen shillings a week’. Even taking the mid point of these figures (7’6d) that still works out at close to £100 over three years so Wontner was not that much far of the mark.

And then, he told her, ‘after getting all you could out of him, you walked off with someone else?’

Georgina ‘did not condescend to answer this question’.

In summing up his client’s defense Mr Wontner told the magistrate (Mr Norton) that his client had removed ‘the property on finding he had been jilted and cut by Miss Hastings, and under the perfect conviction that it belonged to him’. Mr Norton, while he might have sympathized with Gray could not see any justification for taking the lady’s clothing. The lawyer conceded this and said his client was prepared to return the clothes and the piano, so long as he was no longer expected to act as security for it.

The magistrate agreed, and having removed the felonious elements of the charge this became a simple dispute over property. That being settled he was happy to discharge James Gray, who walked away to lick his wounds and find a new lover. Miss Hastings was free to return to her singing and her piano lessons but her reputation had undoubtedly suffered for having her love life publicized in the newspapers.

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, August 02, 1854]

All’s well that ends well?: love and abduction in 1850s London

 

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Mr Pass, like many fathers, wanted the best for his daughter. He was part of the large immigrant population of London, a boot maker by trade, he lived in Hoxton, East London. His sister had married and was living in Regent’s Park, well away from some of the bad influences Pass feared his daughter might be exposed to. So at an early age he opted to send her to live there.

It must have been a wrench but then again, with his wife dead Pass was hardly in a position to bring up his child and educate her to be the respectable Jewish woman he hoped she would become. Moreover, his sister, Louisa Salomens, was a ‘lady of property’, who had a house in Northumberland Terrace, and young Rebecca Pass would do well there.

So off she was sent as an infant to live and learn from her aunt. All was going well until one day in early July 1857 when Rebecca, accompanied by a servant bearing a note, turned up at Pass’ home in Hoxton. The message was worrying: according to Mrs Salomens Rebecca had ‘formed some improper connection’ with an unsuitable young man and Louisa felt it best that her brother now take ‘exclusive control’ of his daughter.

Pass must have been shocked and then angry but of course he took Rebecca in and made her as comfortable as possible. She lived there under strict supervision (probably never being allowed out, unless it was with her father) until the last week or so of the month when the Pass household had another unexpected visitor at their home in Pitfield Street, Hoxton.

This time it was a young man named John Aarons, a ‘swarthy, sun burnt’ fellow who gave his address as the Continental Hotel in Leadenhall Street. Aarons explained that there had been a terrible misunderstanding ‘arising from a trifling misconception’, and there really was no ‘unsuitable connection’ at all, Louisa had got it all wrong. He had come to accompany Rebecca back to Northumberland Terrace where her uncle was waiting to take a trip to the country. He was very keen to see Rebecca before he went.

Perhaps experiencing a mix of emotions the boot maker agreed to let Aarons take her away, but insisted he had her back by six that evening. With that his daughter walked off with the young man, supposedly on her way back to Regent’s Park, albeit temporarily.

Of course, she never arrived. Pass travelled to his sister’s when she failed to appear and the police were immediately informed. A description of Aarons was circulated and he was soon picked up by a City of London constable in Houndsditch. On Monday morning (27 July) Aarions was brought before Mr Hammill at Worship Street, charged with abduction.

Both Pass and his sister were in court to set the scene. Louisa Salomens (a ‘very lady-like person’), explained that her niece had become involved with a ‘man of loose morals and inferior station’ (I’m not sure which was worse really). In this she had been aided and abetted by one of  Mrs Salomens servants, who had since been dismissed. Aarons had then turned up at her door and said he represented the young man that Rebecca had fallen for. He pleased for his friend and for Mrs Salomens to allow him to see Rebecca. The couple were in love he insisted, and it would ‘be a shame’ to part them.

Clearly Louisa wanted nothing to do with him and sent him away with a flea in his ear. So she was shocked to discover that he ‘had beguiled the girl from her father’s protection’ claiming he’d been sent by her. She’d sent no such message at all.

Aarons, demonstrating ‘an air of confident bravado’,  tried gamely to cross-examine Mrs Salomens and her brother to undermine her testimony but both were steadfast and he failed.  Mr Hammill said the charge of abduction had been clearly established and he would remand him in custody for a week while he decided what to do with him.

‘You don’t mean that!’ cried the prisoner from the dock. ‘Why I have paid my passage-money for America, and the ship sails tomorrow. But you’ll take bail, of course’.

No, Mr Hammill told him, he would not. Not at present, at least. This blow landed on Aarons but he soon recovered his ‘audacious demeanor’, and ‘swaggered out with the gaoler’.

Unusually for these little vignettes from the Police Courts this story has a happy ending.

Three days later a representative from a firm of London solicitors, Solomens, appeared in court to make a statement to Mr Hammill. They came to say that the young man who was at the heart of this love triangle had been found. He was not at all unsuitable or a person of ‘loose morals’ but instead was ‘respectably connected, and altogether unexceptionable in his character and circumstances’. Moreover, he had pledged to marry Rebecca immediately and thus, her ‘fair name remains unsullied’. As the family socilitor he was asking the court to discharge John Aarons forthwith.

The defendant was then brought over from the house of correction and the happy news was relayed to him. He was then released and Mr Hammill commented that he was delighted that all had ended as well as it had. Aarons had presumably still missed his boat though, but perhaps a grateful family might now be prepared to fund a ticket for a later one.

So, what do we think really happened here?  Had Rebecca and her unnamed admirer become lovers? Was that why the aunt had become so concerned? Or had they simply been discovered together (in her room perhaps) without a chaperone? Who knows, at least all’s well that ends well as the bard would say.

[from The Standard, Monday, July 27, 1857; The Standard, Thursday, July 31, 1857]

The soldier who found it all too much to bear

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This is one of those stories that could make a mini drama series all of its own, despite there being very little detail to go on. All it needs is a storyteller with a vivid imagination.

In July 1861 a ‘tall, military-looking man; named James Moxham was set in the dock at Southwark Police court. He was charged with two counts of theft and one of attempting to kill himself in his cell. How on earth had he come to this desperate state?

It seems that Moxham, a soldier in the army, had been courting a young woman named Jane Clerk. The court heard that he was accused of stealing two gold rings and a pawnbroker’s duplicate (ticket) for a gold chain. The jewelry belonged to Jane but one wonders if the rings had been intended for the two of them at some future wedding ceremony.

Clearly something had gone very wrong for Jane to bring a charge of felonious theft against her paramour but what exactly happened isn’t revealed in this report. All we are told was that in court Jane pleaded for leniency on the grounds that Moxham had since returned the stolen items and she’d forgiven him.

The soldier had also tried to hang himself in his cell, though whether this was because he believed he’d lost his chance at love or could not cope with the public shame of a court hearing for theft, is again, open to question. He told the sitting justice, Mr Maude, that he deeply regretted his actions and it was evident he was still traumatized from his experience.

Since Jane no longer wished to bring a prosecution and the jewelry had been reunited with its owner, Mr Maude admonished the soldier for his bad behaviour but directed the clerk of the court to discharge him. That should have been that but a policeman piped up that Moxham was wanted by the army, as a deserter. That may have been the real shame he was trying to escape from. He was immediately re-arrested and taken back to the cells to await the visit of his company sergeant.

So there you have it, a drama in several acts: a tale of unrequited love or star-crossed lovers? An attempt to run away from the army to marry the woman he loved? A mental crisis occasioned by the impending doom of public shame? Over to you novelists!

[from The Morning Chronicle, Friday, July 5, 1861]

A young postman is overwhelmed by Valentine’s Day

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Amidst all the commercial celebration of Valentine’s day, with every supermarket making special ‘dine in’ offers, shops filling their windows with hearts and chocolates, and florists selling red roses at double the normal price, it is easy to see that for some of these traders this has become one of the key income generating weeks of the year.

Once Christmas and the sales are over there is usually a slump in trade before Easter that [St] Valentine’s Day has now assumed such an importance to the retail industry. But do we have an idea of how busy it was in the past I wonder? We know the Victorians celebrated the occasion and sent love tokens as we do, but what effect did that have on everyday life?

Well we can get an idea of how it affected the people that delivered those messages, the postmen of the Victorian capital, in this case from 1871. An unnamed postman was prosecuted at Westminster Police court for drunkenness whilst on duty. His offence was minor but had the potential for serious consequences, his defense however, was most illuminating.

Mr Woolrych, the sitting magistrate at Westminster that day, was told that a crowd of ‘disorderly persons’ had gathered around a postman, drawing the attention of a passing police officer. As the bobby pushed his way through the throng he found the postman sorting a pile of letters under a lamppost. It was late at night, past 10.30, which was why he needed the gaslight to read the addresses on the mail.

Most of the letters ‘were valentines’ and they should have been delivered much earlier in the day by a colleague but that postie had failed to find the addresses and so they had gone back in the system, and our man was now tasked with uniting them with the correct (and probably by now quite desperate) recipients.

As the postman at last moved off to make his deliveries the policeman noticed that he was rather unsteady on his feet, and stopped him. He quickly realized that the man was under the influence of alcohol and he arrested him. In court the postman apologized but said he had been on duty since four in the morning, had had very little if anything to eat all day, and so when a kindly woman had treated him to a ‘tumbler of sherry’ it had ‘produced an effect over which [he] had no control’.

His supervisor appeared to confirm that the young man had an exemplary record in his four and a half years with the Post Office:

‘He was a steady, honest, and industrious servant, against whom no complaint had ever been made; and should he be convicted…dismissal from the service would certainly follow’.

In this case common sense prevailed. Mr Woolrych accepted that while drinking on duty rendered the man  ‘blamable’ for the offence there were mitigating factors. There was no need to ruin a young man with such a previously unblemished record and so he discharged him (which is probably why the papers decided not to reveal his name).

The evidence revealed that (as noted earlier):

the ‘defendant had been on duty since four o’clock in the morning without intermission or opportunity of taking a meal, as the valentine delivery was very heavy, and the reserve men had even been called upon to perform the duties of letter-carriers’.

Valentine’s Day was a big day then in Victorian England with very many people using the postal service to send their tokens of affection to their sweethearts. After Christmas this was probably the busiest period of the year for the men of the Post Office, just as it is today for the florists, chocolatiers and restaurateurs of the capital.

[from The Morning Post, Thursday, February 16, 1871]

Of unrequited love and the pledging of china, not troths: a valentine’s day post from the Police Courts

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Today it is Valentine’s Day, and so all the shops are fun of heart themed gifts, chocolates and cards. If you try to buy a bunch of red roses this week you can guarantee that they will be double what you’d pay at any other time of the year, and if you choose to eat out on Thursday night the menus will be ‘special’ and the tables set up for couples.

Valentine’s Day is now a commercial opportunity, just like Mother’s Day, Christmas and Easter but has it always been thus?

It is likely that Valentine’s Day celebrates the martyrdom of one or more individuals in ancient Christianity who were associated in some way with romance. The positioning of the holiday in February however has much more to do with the early Church’s campaign to eradicate paganism.

In Roman pagan tradition mid February was a time to celebrate fertility and the god Faunus. During the festival of Lupercalia the unmarried young women of Rome would place their names in a  large urn  to be drawn out by the city’s bachelors. The couples were paired for a year but often (it is said) married their ‘chosen’ partners. There were other more bawdy elements to the festival, supposedly including nudity and the spanking of bottoms!

The romantic element (as opposed to the more overtly sexual one) of Valentine’s can be traced back to the 14th century when courtly love was very much in vogue amongst European nobility. By the early modern period the practice of sending love tokens on the 14 February seems to have been well established; Shakespeare references it in Hamlet for example. The late eighteenth century saw pamphlets published to help individuals write their own messages and the introduction of the penny post in 1840 opened up the possibly for the masses to exchange anonymous love letters.

The Victorians soon became hooked on the practice and card manufactures began to mass produce valentine cards in the 1840s. In 1847 the first commercial cards appeared in the United States and we can probably date the modern obsession with Valentine’s Day from then.

Of course the 14 February is just another day for many, and can quite a lonely place if you are on your own. There are hundreds of hits for a Google search of ‘Valentine’s Blues’ and the overhyping of this one day as a ‘time for lovers’ can be very challenging for those without a partner. There is also considerable pressure on those who are in relationships to make the day ‘special’, to spend lots of money, or simply to be ‘romantic’. Ir would probably be better to encourage a loving supportive relationship for 365 days of the year rather than just one.

Meanwhile back in 1847 in London one young woman was certainly not about to enjoy her Valentine’s Day, and her reaction to this ended up in a court case at one of London’s Police Magistrate Courts.

Thomas Frisk was a young saddler living in Fore Street in the City of London. For several months he had been courting a young lady named Mary. Mary (whose full name was Mary Martha Mills) lived in Somers Place West, St Pancras and for the past nine months Thomas had sent her his ‘addresses’ and had showered her with gifts and money.

He did so in the hope that they would be married and Mary had given him some encouragement. So confident (or hopeful) was he that they would be wed that Thomas sent her money to buy a fine china dinner service. The magistrate at Clerkenwell Police Court was told that Thomas did this in anticipation of the ‘happy day’ …when they would ‘be made one’.

Sadly for Mary Thomas was not a very patient young man and soon became keen on ‘another charmer’ and broke off the relationship with Mary. He then rather ungallantly  heaped scorn on her unhappiness by demanding the return of the china she had bought to grace their marital home.

Mary reacted as many might and refused to return his gifts. Instead she pawned the dinner service and send him back the ‘duplicate’ (the  pawn ticket). I’m sure Bridget Jones would empathise with Mary Martha Mills.

We all act differently when we are unlucky in love, or rejected by the object of our affections. Few of us will be so lucky to go through life without this happening.

Thomas was upset but his reaction was extreme. Instead of taking the hit to his pocket he chose instead to take his former amour to court. Not surprisingly the magistrate was less than sympathetic; the reporter in the paper noted that ‘Mr Wakeling [the magistrate] questioned the compliant, who cut a very sorry figure in court’, and dismissed the case without costs.

Love and marriage was one of several themes the court reporters of the Victorian press liked to cover for the ‘human interest’ nature of the stories. I’ve found a handful of stories that detail cases of eloping lovers, angered fathers, and broken relationships – all of which that end badly in the summary courts of the capital. They go to show us that our Victorian ancestors are much more closely linked to our modern lives than the passage of 150 or more years might suggest.

[from The Morning Post (London, England), Friday, February 12, 1847]

‘A weak-minded blackguard’: unrequited love and mental health collide at Hammersmith

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Frederick George Helmore was a troubled young man. The son of a successful coal merchant Frederick had been before the magistrates on more than one occasion, and had been cited in Chancery as a father moved to protect his daughter from the young man’s advances.

The problem had started in 1874 when Frederick had met Sarah Alice Grierson at Margate when she and her family had been on holiday. Sarah was also well connected, as the daughter of the General Manager of the Great Western Railway she enjoyed a life of considerable luxury. At first it seems that Sarah was quite enamoured with Frederick and enjoyed his attention. She wore a necktie he gave her to church and returned his letters.

But either she tired of him or her parents felt the match was inappropriate or she was too young (at 16 or 17) and she cooled on him. Fred was not to be deterred however and he kept writing to her, sending gifts and turning up at places he expected to find her (including at school and at seaside retreats like Margate and Folkestone).

This behaviour was not ‘normal’ and today we would describe as stalking. The courts soon became involved as her family tried to protect her. Frederick was summoned before Mr Sheil at Hammersmith Police court and bound over for £250 to refrain from approaching her. Her father had even fixed a sum of £100 on her to make her a formal ward of the court of Chancery as a result of Frederick’s unwanted attention.

None of this stopped the young man however and his behaviour became ever more extreme to the point that his mental health was being called into question. In October 1881, seven years after his initial meeting with Sarah, he was again in court at Hammersmith, this time in front of Mr Paget.

The charge was one of annoying Miss Grierson and threatening her life. According to the prosecution (conducted by Mr Lambert) Fred had approached Sarah and her sister in town and when they had climbed into their coach he ran after them. The magistrate was told that he tried to hang on the window and shouted threats at Sarah. Her sister reported that he warned that he ‘would do for you now, Alice’, before the window was closed and the coach moved off.

Mr Grierson gave an account of the years of trouble that Fred had caused and said that only recently he had donated a watch that the young man had sent to Sarah Alice to charity. The railwayman described Frederick as either a ‘lunatic’ or a ‘weak-minded blackguard’.  He was clearly sick of the whole business and wanted something to be done about it.

In court Frederick vehemently denied threatening Sarah Alice, swearing that all he said was that she ‘had gone too far’. He was not dealing with rejection at all well and the hints at the state of his mental health were probably close to the truth.

This is certainly what Mr Paget concluded. He bound the man over again, this time for the huge sum of £1000 plus two further sureties of £500 each (one of whom was Fred’s father).  But he warned him (and his family) that if he was summoned before the police courts again he would be dealt with as a lunatic and ‘not under proper control’. In other words he would restrained and locked up in an asylum (‘sectioned’ as we might term it today).

Frederick was led away and given into the care of his family. Hopefully they took the necessary precautions to make sure he never again troubled the Griersons.

[from The Standard, Thursday 13 October, 1881]

An editor’s dream as a lover’s quarrel is aired in court

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This case is quite unusual and barely qualifies as a case the London magistracy could hear at all. Indeed Mr Hardwick, the incumbent justice at Marlborough Street, was clearly annoyed that it had come before him at all, and this certainly influenced his decision making. Most all though, it shows how rich a source of stories the police courts were for the London press.

At the end of June 1842 a young man by the name of Frederick Isambiel appeared at the Marlborough Street Police court to ask Mr. Hardwick to issue a warrant to arrest a young woman for assault. Isambiel was tall, respectable and well dressed. He told the magistrate that eight months previously he’d traveled to Surrey with ‘a gentleman of fortune’ and there he’d met a young lady who was under the care of her guardian. According to his account she had fallen madly in love with him but he didn’t return her affections.

This didn’t put her off however, and even when he returned to London she found out where he lived, sent a spy to watch him, and then, just a few days ago, she contrived a meeting with him in the Haymarket. There, ‘not wishing to be besieged with her unfortunate affection, he tried to get away, and this led to his coat being torn’. Since she had now returned to Surrey with her friends he required a warrant to bring her to court.

At first the justice tried to put him off, suggesting he had no power to send a warrant into Surrey. But pressed he agreed he did have that power, ‘recollecting that he could act in all the metropolitan counties’. However, his advice was to seek a summons instead. A summons had less legal power as it wasn’t executed by a police officer and Frederick was sure his ‘stalker’ (as we might describe her today), would ignore it.

He added that she had also threatened him: she was ‘so resolute that she had already threatened to write to a friend to “call him out,” if he did not meet her advances in a hymeneal spirit’.

In other words agree to marry her.

Eventually Frederick was persuaded to apply for a summons, which was posted to the young woman in question. Three days later, on the last day of June, the young woman’s representatives answered the summons by appearing in Mr. Hardwick’s court to rebut the charge of assault. What followed was acrimonious and arguably served no good but to amuse the readership of the London papers as they digested their toast and marmalade.

Miss Thyrza Sumner lived at Oatlands farm, Surrey under the care of her guardian, Mr Haynes. Haynes and a solicitor were there to represent Thyrza who had remained at home. This upset Isambeil who felt she should be present so he could defend his good name which he ‘felt had suffered in consequence of the violence of the young lady’s passion for him’.

Mr Hardwick refused his request saying that he was here to try the assault, nothing more, and that if Frederick wished to pursue a civil case of character assassination he’d have to do so elsewhere. He hoped then that Mr. Haynes and his lawyer were prepared to answer for Thyrza. They were, and were perfectly happy to settle the matter there and then if the young man refrained from further statements in court.

Unfortunately for all concerned Frederick Isambiel seemed to have wanted his moment in the spotlight. He produced a bundle of letters and declared he was going to read them and set out his version of events.

He started by explaining why he’d traveled to Surrey in the first place, and was immediately challenged by Mr. Haynes. He said he went to Oatlands with a gentleman.

‘You went as [his] valet’ interrupted Haynes.

‘Silence’, was Isambiel’s ‘furious’ response.

Haynes persisted: ‘You were valet to the Hon. Mr. Littleton, who turned you off on his marriage with Lord Beverley’s daughter’.

Frederick tried to carry on, ignoring Haynes’ attempt to undermine him. He recounted his meeting with Thyzra and how she’d fallen for him and read aloud a letter (from him) in which he had tried to let her down gently. In it he explains how he is an unsuitable match for her, not possessing the means to keep her in a manner fitting ‘for a lady who has, and always will have the comforts of a good home all her life’.

He then proceeded to read Thyzra’s reply which included some ‘unintelligible poetry’ and a lot of heartfelt sentiment. Another letter expressed her ‘grief at your cold farewell’ and said that she ‘had no hope left for the future’ signing the letter ‘your distracted Thyrza’.

This public airing of deeply personal feelings was entirely unnecessary to prove an assault accusation and the magistrate was keen to close it down as soon as he could. Nevertheless it was manna from Heaven for the journalists scribbling down the story in court. Most cases before the courts got a few paragraphs at most, often much less, this one ran for over a column.

Mr Hardwick told Frederick to stick to the point. He said he’d been assaulted at Dubourg’s Hotel on the Haymarket, so what were the circumstances? In Isambiel’s version he’d met Thyzra and they’d gone into a private room. As soon as they were alone she’d locked the door and threw herself into a chair and began to declare her love for him.

He insisted of being allowed to leave at once but she refused. He threatened to call the police and she insisted she would only open the door if he kissed her.

“I will not kiss you,’ he said, and rushed to the window to summon a constable but, as he described in court, ‘she ran to me and caught me about the neck, and tried to kiss me. I held my hand up, and being much taller than she is, she could only kiss my breast, which she did, till I threw up the window to call the police’.

At that point a voice in the next room – clearly someone listening through the keyhole called out ‘Thyzra, its no use!’ The door opened and Isambiel left, in the struggle his coat was torn.

The defence offered an alternative version saying that Thyzra had wanted her letters back, presumably so that they couldn’t be used against her as Frederick was doing today. It was deeply embarrassing and quite understandable that she would wish them destroyed and certainly not printed in the newspapers, as now happened. Haynes and his solicitor admitted the assault and the damage to the coat, but not the version of it that Frederick had given. In fact they said this had occurred a month ago and in Surrey. This annoyed Mr. Hardwick as he felt it could have been dealt with down there.

Mr Haynes suggested that there was a darker motive to Isambiel’s actions. He hinted that the young man was hoping for a settlement of £50 per year from the young lady and her family. Was this to buy him off and make the complaint go away to save her good name? The magistrate was at a loss as to what to do with the case, and said so.

Frederick said he had ‘proved the assault’ and now charged her with trying (in her earlier threat) of trying to provoke him into fighting a duel with her (unnamed) champion.

Mr Haynes dismissed this: ‘I don’t think you are a person very likely to fight, so there is no danger about the duel’.

The magistrate seems to have agreed as he dismissed the assault charge and said that if Isambiel wanted to pursue any further hurt against his good name he’d have to do so at his own expense and in a civil court. As an out of work valet with little more wealth than he stood up in, that was hardly likely so this would be an end of it all.

Frederick must have recognized this but he was determined to have the last word and sought out the men of the press as he left court. They helpfully published three of the letters between the ‘lovers’, including some doggerel poetry and the threat of the duel.

The press always know a good story when they see one.

[from The Morning Post, Monday, June 27, 1842;The Morning Chronicle , Friday, July 1, 1842]

‘I did it for love!’ Jealousy, xenophobia and murder in Bermondsey.

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In late May 1891 Franz Joseph Munch, a 31 year-old baker living in Bermondsey appeared at Southwark Police court to answer a charge of murder. According to the policeman that arrested him he had shot a Mancunian named Heckey who had been making his life a misery and who, he believed, had been stealing from his employer. On his way to the police station the German asked Sgt. Ayerst (of M Division, Metropolitan Police) how badly injured the other man was.

‘I think he is dead‘ the sergeant replied.

‘A _______ good job‘, responded Munch (and we can imagine the deleted expletive), ‘he called me a German bastard‘, adding ‘I suppose I shall swing for it in a month‘.

The papers dubbed the case ‘the Bermondsey Murder’ and Munch was hauled off to prison to face a trial at the Old Bailey.

Munch was tried at the Old Bailey on the 29 June 1891. Much of the evidence was repetitive (as trials often are) and concerned the events of the night Hickey died. He and a friend (an engine named Joel Dymond) had been drinking in the Lord Palmerston pub opposite Mrs Conrath’s bakery where Munch was employed Several people saw Hickey and Dymond cross the road to the bakery.

Hickey got out his key and entered the building. Almost immediately there was a bang and a flash and Hickey staggered out on two the street and collapsed. He’d been shot and Munch followed him out holding a gun in one hand and a knife  in the other. He was quickly overpowered and led away; Hickey was taken to the pub where he died before medical help could arrive.

The key to the story is Bridget Conrath, the bakery’s proprietor. She was Hickey’s cousin and, for some time at least, Munch’s lover. It seemed that when Hickey arrived in the capital from Manchester he was looking to start his own business and perhaps he had designs on his cousin’s. He certainly didn’t approve of her relationship with a foreigner and it plain. He insulted Munch at every opportunity and refused to be in the same room as him.

Hickey also moved to get the German baker the sack, insisting that Bridget get rid of him. In the end she was persuaded (perhaps by force or familial pressure) to give Franz his notice. She didn’t want to she told the court, and it had a terrible effect on Munch. He’d proposed to her and she rejected him but they’d stayed close friends and she valued him as an employee. He was trusted with the shop’s money and perhaps he’d noticed Hickey helping himself to the takings as he swanned around the place. When Bridget gave him his marching orders he got drunk – the only time she’d seen him lose his control in all the years she’d known him.

In the days leading up to the murder Munch was also suffering from tooth ache and this physical agony, combined with the upset and shame of losing his job and seeing the woman he loved being manipulated by a racist bigot probably pushed him over the edge.

The jury clearly thought so. They found him guilty (as he undoubtedly was) but recommended him to mercy on the grounds of provocation. The judge donned the black square of cloth and sentenced Franz Joseph to death. Berry-1

Munch appealed his sentence to the German Embassy but they did nothing to help him. He’d left Germany to avoid being conscripted into the army and having supposedly abandoned his country, his country left him to die at the end of James Berry’s rope. He was executed on the 21 July 1891 at Wandsworth Prison.

                                           James Berry, the executioner

[from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, May 31, 1891]