Tag: St George’s Hospital

‘Furious driving’ and RTAs: have we lost control of our streets?

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While the Metropolitan Police courts dealt with all manner of crimes, misdemeanors, and complaints, the press only selectively reported them. Sensational cases, hard rending ones, and those which reflected a current concern were the most likely to grab the ‘headlines’ in the later 1800s.

On 12 January 1881 the Morning Post chose to focus attention on dangerous driving in central London, highlighting three cases that came before the Westminster magistrate Mr Partridge. Of course none of these involved cars or vans or motorcycles; none of the vehicles we associate with road traffic accidents had been invented in the 1880s, everything was horse drawn in Victorian capital.

Yet accidents were fairly common, and being run over by a horse drawn cart or carriage was just as likely to result in injury and death as being hit by a car today. More so perhaps, since medicine was much less effective and the emergency services much less well equipped.

Speeding was termed ‘Furious driving’ – driving or riding that endangered life – and was punishable by a fine or imprisonment; cab drivers found drunk by police could be arrested, those driving ‘furiously’ would be charged accordingly. Drunk driving was clearly as much of a problem in the 1800s as it was in the 1900s.

On 11 January John Smith was charged before Mr Partridge at Westminster with being drunk in charge of his hansom cab and running over a little girl. Smith had been driving along the Fulham Road and turned quickly (too quickly really) into Marlborough Road, just as Rhoda Thompson was crossing it.

Smith’s cab hit the child who went under the wheels and was run over. A policeman saw the incident and intervened, making sure Rhoda was taken to St George’s Hospital. The cab driver appeared to be drunk and so he was escorted to the nearest police station to be charged. In court Smith said he was distressed by the accident but not drunk and said the officer must have mistaken his shock for inebriation.  The magistrate was told that the girl was still in hospital and her condition not yet known, with that in mind he remanded Smith in custody to see what happened.

Next up before him were George Franklin (21), James Galleymore (also 21) and Fredrick Drake (a labourer, whose age was not given). Franklin and Galleymore were carmen, the nineteenth-century equivalent of van delivery drivers today. Franklin had been arrested for being drunk in charge of a horse and cart and knocking down John Silcock in the King’s Road, Chelsea. Galleymore and Drake were both drunk and disorder the court was told and the former was also charged with assaulting PC Campion (506T) at Chelsea Police station.

Franklin was driving a van ‘rapidly’ as it went round the corner by the police station, just as Silcock was crossing the road. Silcock, an elderly man who was employed as a timekeeper by the London Omnibus Company, was knocked down but, fortunately, not badly hurt. He’d been carrying a small child in his arms and miraculously, she was also unharmed.

Mr Partridge, perhaps minded to make an example of the trio, said ‘he was determined to do all in his power to put down this reckless driving in the streets’. He sentenced Franklin to two months in prison with hard labour, gave Galleymore six weeks, and fined Drake 10s for being drunk (warning him he’d also go to gaol if he failed to pay).

Finally, John Lincoln was brought up to face a charge of being drunk in charge of his Hackney cab. On Monday evening Lincoln’s cab had collided with a ‘light spring van’ being driven by William Dyerson on the Vauxhall Bridge Road. Such was the force of the crash that Mrs Dyerson was thrown out of the van onto the street, breaking her arm.

A policeman saw the whole incident unfold and rushed to help the lady. Lincoln was arrested and the officer declared he was drunk and driving ‘recklessly’. Mr Partridge decided the incident was severe enough to require a jury trial and committed him to the next sessions of the peace.

Lincoln (who gave his age as 52) appeared at the quarter sessions on 24 January 1881 where he was found not guilty of furious driving but was convicted of willful misconduct, and of causing ‘bodily harm’ to Jane Dyerson. The court fined him 20s.

In the streets around me a 20mph speed limit is in place, because there are several schools near by. This doesn’t stop people driving ‘furiously’ and on the main road cars and vans frequently race across the zebra crossing, even when pedestrians are halfway across it.  They know that they are very unlikely to be caught or prosecuted for doing so, and so can speed and endanger lives with impunity.

I’ve raised it with the council who aren’t interested. I’ve raised it with the police who were too busy to even respond to me. It seems that unless someone dies we don’t road traffic incidents as seriously as Mr Partridge once did.

[from Morning Post, 12 January, 1881]

‘Such things are a disgrace there’: A Dutchman tries to save his father’s shame by dumping his grandchild on the streets of London

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Lower Thames Street in the late 1800s

One of the subjects that continues to fascinate my undergraduate students is infanticide. Almost invariably they approach the topic wanting to understand how a mother could deliberately murder her newborn baby. Looking through the very many cases that came before the Old Bailey they are understandably shocked at the stories of women who cut their infant child’s throat, or smothered it at birth, before dumping the body in the nearest privy.

Without wishing to deny the reality that some mothers did kill their newborn babies I think most historians would agree that this was probably the exception rather than the rule in infanticide cases. Babies died in childbirth much more often in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before advancements in medical care arrived in the 1900s. Most importantly the women accused were invariably single, poor, young and from the servant class. These young women had fallen pregnant and then had tried to conceal this from their families and employers, for fear of being condemned as immoral and, in the case of servants, being dismissed from service.

Illegitimacy is not an issue in most Western societies today. Very many people choose to live together before they marry and some do not marry at all yet still have children. This has been widely accepted in most communities in Britain since the 1970s if not a little earlier and the word ‘bastard’ has almost lost its original meaning.

However this was far from true in the 1800s, even if – as this case perhaps implies – London was seen as a more progressive city than some in Europe.

In December 1875 Samuel Whiffin was walking towards London Bridge on Lower Thames Street when he noticed a parcel lying near a doorway. As a policeman was approaching from the opposite direction Whiffin called him over and pointed out the package. PC Holly examined it and realized that it contained the body of an infant.

To his relief the baby was alive but very cold, so PC Holly carried it off to the Home for the Houseless Poor. This charity provided ‘nightly shelter and sustenance to the absolutely destitute working- classes, who are suddenly thrown out of employment by inclement weather’.* Having been looked after by the charity the child was next taken to the Homerton Workhouse and the search for its parents began.

Three days later Jans Hans, a Dutch labourer living at 3, Walburgh Street, St George-in-the-East, was brought before Sir Robert Carden at  Mansion House to be examined concerning the abandonment of the child. He was accused along with his sister, who was in St George’s hospital and too ill to attend.

The court heard the evidence of PC Holly as to the finding of the baby and then from a Mrs Plaggenine, a German woman who was landlady to Hans and his sister. Sir Robert was interested in the revelation that the siblings shared a single room in the property, and intimated that this was not normal. Mrs Plaggenine ignored, or did not understand, the magistrate’s question, but the suggestion of incest was left hanging in the air.

The policeman that had arrested Jan Hans questioned him about the child and reported that the man had admitted leaving it in the street on the previous Thursday. Hans told him that he had set the child down then retired to a safe spot where he could watch to see that someone stopped and rescued the baby. He had tried advertising the baby for adoption but had no success.

Hans and his sister were desperate, the Dutchman now explained to the alderman. They were very poor and couldn’t afford to raise a child. His sister had traveled from Holland ‘to be confined’ (to give birth) because the father refused to take responsibility for it. He added that ‘such things were a disgrace there’.

Presumably because Jan lived and worked in London this seemed like a good solution to Hans senior. If he sent his daughter to England she could give birth and the child would be brought up by strangers in a strange country but at least his family’s reputation would be protected. The child had a lucky escape and it is hard to imagine the mental state of Hans’ sister who seems to have been almost entirely left out of the decision-making process. She was ill in hospital while her brother disposed of her baby and the alderman magistrate cast further doubt on her morality by suggesting it was the product of an incestuous relationship.

Jan Hans was remanded in custody so that the courts could decide what to do with him and his sister. If they couldn’t and wouldn’t care for the baby (and no adopted family could be found) then it would grow up in the workhouse like Oliver Twist, perhaps never knowing of it Dutch heritage.

[from The Morning Post, Monday, 20 December, 1875]

A ‘murderous assault’ in Kensington

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Francis Harben and George Parr both worked for as a harness maker in Kensington but their relationship wasn’t good. Parr had quarrelled with Harben’s uncle (about what it is not clear) but the two young men (Parr was 20) hand;t spoken to each other in weeks.

At half past four on 31 July 1881 Harben entered the saddler’s shop at 10 Holland Place to ‘brush his clothes’. Parr was already there and, seemingly without provocation, he ‘sprang upon him’ and attacked him.

The attack was brutal and almost deadly:

Parr ‘caught hold of his throat and pushed him against the wall’, Harben ‘struggled to get away but [Parr] picked up a leather-cutter’s knife from the board and stabbed him in the throat with it’.

Harben was then stabbed in the back of head and three more times in the face and neck. As he fell to the floor he dragged his attacker down with him and the pair wrestled for some moments before Harben managed to escape.

At no point did the other man say anything that might explain his ferocious attack on the harness maker. PC Northover (T415) eventually arrived at the shop and found the attacker himself bleeding profusely from a wound in his throat. He helped Parr get to the St George’s Hospital where he was treated for his injuries. Soon afterwards Harben also arrived at the hospital having been helped there by some passers-by.

The surgeon that rated them said that Harben was ‘in a state of collapse, suffering from great loss of blood’ and he kept him in hospital for several days before he could appear at the Hammersmith Police Court as a witness against his work colleague. As for Parr he too was close to death with ‘a dangerous wound, [that] must have been done with considerable violence’, he later told an Old Bailey courtroom.

At Hammersmith Parr was charged with ‘cutting and wounding’ and with attempted suicide. The suggestion was that he had, for no stated reason, attacked Harben and then turned the knife on himself. Parr had no recollection of doing anything and so his mental health was called into question. Mr Shiel at Hammersmith committed him to take his trial at Old Bailey and there the house surgeon at Newgate was called to speak to his mental state.

Mr Rowland Gibson did not think that Parr was ‘mad’: ‘the prisoner appeared to be perfectly placid, and quite rational’ when he examined him he said. He ‘had lost a great deal of blood, and was very pale, and is now—the loss of blood might take away his memory for the time—he offered no explanation of how the thing occurred—he said he could not remember anything about it’.

Parr was charged with attempted murder and inflicting grievous bodily harm and tried on 12 September 1881. The jury acquitted him of the first charge but found him guilty of GBH. The judge handed down a sentence of penal servitude for five years.

[from The Standard , Monday, August 29, 1881]

Callous violence is punished with a fine

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Pall Mall, c.1842

This is an unpleasant if unusual case of domestic abuse. It is unusual because of the nature of the injury caused and how, and because it took place in public. It led to the arrest of a man and the hospitalisation of his victim.

James Jones of 9 Claremont Place, Lisson Grove, appeared at the Marlborough Street Police Court in early July 1844 on a charge of assault. His victim was his common-law wife, Mary Ann Drew. There was at least one witness to the attack, which happened in broad daylight on Pall Mall.

Jones had been out friends, dining in Chelsea, but it seems Mary Ann had been concerned that he was up to something else. She had followed him about during the day and had been imploring  him to come home. He had dismissed her and told he would come home when he was ready. Mary Ann was not satisfied however, and continued to dog his footsteps, which clearly annoyed him.

Edward Groom was also strolling on Pall Mall and saw the couple, Mary Ann walking a few paces behind her ‘husband’. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and Groom saw Jones stop and turn around. He advanced on the woman brandishing his umbrella. Then he struck.

‘he made a lunge at her with his umbrella, and thrust the ferrule [the sharp metal tip] under her eye, so as to burst the eye-ball, and cause it to protrude from the socket’.

Mary Ann fell to the pavement screaming in agony, where she lay until a policeman came up and helped take her to St George’s Hospital. Meanwhile Jones was seized and arrested. As he was led away he muttered that ‘it served her right, for following him about’.

In court he admitted lunging at her but with no intention of doing her ‘serious injury’. He said he was drunk at the time. The surgeon who had treated her appeared to give the grim news that she would never recover her sight in that eye. She was also far too ill to testify before the magistrate at this time. Mr Maltby, the justice, fined her £5 which he paid straight away and walked free.

Domestic violence was endemic in Victorian London but it usually took place behind closed door and the police often turned a blind eye. No one wanted to get involved in ‘a domestic’. It was often only the actions of concerned neighbours that saved working-class women from their savage husbands and partners. For wealthier middle-class women the abuse was often just as bad but more carefully hidden by them, fearing embarrassment.

This blog is sadly filled with numerous cases of domestic violence meted out by brutish males and I have created a sub-section theme for those interested in learning more about this dark side of Victorian society. Follow this link for similar cases.

Domestic violence

[from The Morning Post, Wednesday, July 03, 1844]

Household tension almost ends in the tragic loss of two young lives

Tensions within households that live close together can always end in angry confrontations, harsh words and sometimes violence. In a period which valued honour (however misplaced that concept was on occasion) more than perhaps we do today these tensions could escalate with tragic consequences. Mostly this meant that quarrels between  men of the elite or upper middling sorts ended in pistol duels at dawn in a quiet park or other open space. In this case a slight to someone’s ‘good name’ ended in a full jury trial at Old Bailey.

in June 1833 Sarah Parry was a servant at Highgate but was staying with her sister in Hammersmith when a young man came to their house. He was Charles Reynolds and Sarah had known him when he also worked for the same employer, a Mr Wetherell, a few months ago. Charles had left, and it would seem he left under a cloud.

He entered the kitchen where the two women were and brandished a pistol. He pulled two more guns from his coat and told Sarah and her sister Elizabeth that they “had injured his character to his parents”  and that they would  “suffer for it”.

Quite what the nature of that injury was is not made clear but it was serious enough for Charles to threaten both their lives and his own. He told the terrified women that he was going to kill them both and then take his own life. A bell rang outside the house and Elizabeth told him to be quiet as people were coming. He shot Sarah and must then have shot himself.

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St. George’s Hospital (c.1745)

The case came before the magistrate at Queen’s Square where the court was told that neither Charles nor Sarah could appear as they were both still recovering from wounds in St George’s hospital. Sarah was out of danger and able to ‘converse rationally’ although it was later revealed that she had lost the index finger of her left hand.

Reynolds was in a much worse state. He had tried to shoot himself in the head but the ball had glanced off and taken out his left eye. In despair he had tried jumping out of a window to finish himself off but only managed to bruise himself. In hospital he told his surgeon that he hoped “the wretch is dead” before adding: “You are trying to preserve me from one death, that I may suffer another.”

In that he was correct because the case eventually reached a jury who convicted him of wounding and attempted murder. The judge sentenced him to death but, at 19 years of age and a previous good character and in “the absence of malice or revengeful disposition” he was recommended to mercy.

[from The Morning Chronicle , Tuesday, July 2, 1833]