The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective (13 page)

In Köhl’s defence his counsel Mr Best made a statement, but called no witnesses. Best emphasised that Köhl’s reaction when seeing Führhop’s body was simply the reaction of a close friend. Likewise, when Köhl had pawned some of Führhop’s possessions, it had been a helpful gesture by a friend for someone who spoke little or no English. He pointed out that the knife found in the reed bed was of a commonplace style and could have belonged to anyone. He stressed that none of the witnesses had noticed any substantial amounts of blood on Köhl’s clothes, and that Führhop’s missing clothes when murdered had not been traced to Köhl. He also suggested that the journey that Köhl had claimed to have made on 3 November was feasible if he had travelled in a butcher’s cart, which Köhl said he had done. The jury’s deliberations lasted half an hour, including seeking some further information on the distances between places, from the surveyor Kaiger. They returned to the court with a ‘guilty’ verdict. This time restraining any tearfulness on his part, Lord Chief Baron Pollock sentenced Köhl to death and committed him to the custody of the High Sheriff of Essex.
¹³¹

Unlike the Müller case, there is no evidence in the contemporary newspaper coverage (which was much more low-key than for Müller) that any pleas for a respite or for mercy were made on Köhl’s behalf. The Reverend Dr Cappel, who had been at Müller’s side in his last moments, also visited Köhl, and was with him on execution day. During his final days at Springfield Gaol, Chelmsford, Köhl continued to protest his innocence. He asked if his sentence might be commuted to transportation, and later acted with anger and aggression, including a suicide attempt in which he kept hitting his head against a wall before he was restrained. On his way to the gallows on Thursday 26 January 1865, Köhl is reported to have said that ‘I had no hand in it; I die an innocent death’.
¹³²
Cappel did not at the end receive any confession from Köhl, who became the last person to be executed in public at Springfield Gaol. George Clarke was probably not in attendance at the execution; he was already working on his next case, a theft at Windsor Castle.
¹³³

The Briggs and Führhop murder cases demonstrate several aspects of the effectiveness of the Metropolitan Police in the mid-Victorian era. Not least, they illustrate the speed in which decisions could be made and actions put in place. Particularly in the Briggs inquiry, when in less than forty-eight hours from receiving important new evidence, two detectives and two witnesses equipped with arrest warrant and new passports were on a ‘fast’ boat to America; all achieved without our modern benefits of telephone, fax and e-mail. The intense public and media interest surrounding the murder of Thomas Briggs also illustrated the challenges that the police faced from the efficiency of the ‘bush telegraph’ in spreading information amongst the population and ‘mobs’ within city communities, whether it be London, Liverpool or New York. However, in all but the incidents associated with Müller’s execution, the policing strategy fulfilled its objectives. Both cases also demonstrate that, by 1864 at least, the police were prepared to operate on an international scale when the need arose, using the network of British consulates to assist their inquiries and, as in the Briggs case, achieving the successful extradition of a suspect despite the political difficulties prevailing at the time.

The legal system in place in 1864, and the manner in which trials were conducted, clearly differed in a number of aspects from the manner in which such trials would be conducted today. For example, there was no Director of Public Prosecutions in place, and many criminal cases less serious than the two murders described above would have been brought to court by the police themselves or by private individuals. In situations where it was felt to be in the public interest for the Crown to be the prosecuting body, then this was dealt with by the solicitor general’s office in the Treasury, as with both the Briggs and Führhop murders. There was no formal legal aid system and, by comparison with the arrangements in place in the twenty-first century, it could be considered that Victorian defendants were at a disadvantage as a consequence. In addition, defendants were not allowed to enter the witness box to give evidence on their own behalf, although this was sometimes a mixed blessing for the defendant’s case during their cross-examination by the prosecution; this situation did not change until the passing of the Criminal Evidence Act in 1898. Finally, in 1864, defending counsels had to make their statements before calling any witnesses for the defence; however, this was to change from 1865 onwards, when witnesses were called before the defending counsel’s statement.

The two murder investigations undoubtedly brought George Clarke’s name into the public arena and consolidated his position within the detective department at Scotland Yard. Although no ‘high flyer’, the skills that he had developed during his twenty-four-year-long service in S Division, and since 1862 in A Division, had contributed significantly to the successful completion of both investigations. It is often difficult from the available contemporary records to tease out the individual contributions of the members of the police teams on a major case. However, it is clear that in the Briggs murder case Clarke carried out much of the work involved in contacting the pilots on Staten Island, and of course directly participated in the moment of Müller’s arrest. While Tanner has historically taken (and probably deserves) much of the credit associated with the arrest and conviction of Müller, some authors have suggested that Clarke’s contribution deserves greater recognition than it has historically been given.
¹³⁴
On the Führhop murder inquiry, Clarke undertook on his own the information-gathering visit to Germany over Christmas 1864 and undoubtedly led the specific inquiries into the fate of Führhop’s possessions. Though pawnbrokers don’t always get a good press, their contribution to both the Briggs and Führhop inquiries was such that Clarke could well have echoed the words of a contemporary of his, Superintendent James Bent of the Manchester Police, on this subject: ‘Few men have had more extended or extensive dealings with the pawnbroking class than myself, and I am ready and glad to bear witness to the fact that the police are often indebted to them far more than the public would imagine for the speedy detection of crime.’
¹³⁵
If determination and devotion to duty were amongst the principal attributes of Victorian detectives, then George Clarke did not fall short on either front. His superiors and the Treasury Solicitor undoubtedly appreciated his value. Clearly, by the beginning of 1865, Clarke’s star was in the ascendant.

3

THE FENIANS ARE COMING

1865–68

Wherever we go, wherever we be,

Some wonders of wonder we daily do see;

All classes through Britain are trembling with fear.

The Fenians are coming – oh, don’t things look queer?

The land of old Erin looks bashful and blue,

Colonel Catchem and General Doodlem doo,

Has crossed the Atlantic, poor Erin to sack,

And carry Hibernia away on their back.

Chorus

There’s a rumpus in Ireland by night and by day,

Old women and girls are afraid out to stray;

Cheer up and be happy on St Patrick’s day,

The Fenians are coming, – get out of the way!

Anonymous
¹

On 21 January 1865, Commissioner Mayne received a letter from the Treasury stating that Detective Sergeant Clarke ‘had proved himself very useful’ in the Führhop murder inquiry, and that they proposed to provide Clarke with a £3 gratuity, subject to Mayne’s approval.
²
On the same day, Clarke was attending a magistrate’s court hearing at Windsor Town Hall. The hearing was linked to an event that had occurred some two days previously, when Scotland Yard had been contacted by Oxenhams auction house, Oxford Street, about a suspicious parcel that they had received from Windsor Castle containing some particularly fine silk bed furniture, together with a request that the items should be sold at auction. Clarke had been asked to make enquiries and had visited Oxenhams to collect the parcel, finding it to contain several pieces made from Indian silk, plus two embroidered silk curtains and matching valances. Travelling to Windsor Castle to pursue enquiries, Clarke interviewed two men and arrested both of them.

One was William Wilson, foreman of the castle’s upholsterers, who had been in post for nine months and had been recently told to overhaul the stores. The second was George Hammond, a long-serving head porter in the lord chamberlain’s stores, who had taken the parcel to Windsor station at Wilson’s request. At the magistrate’s hearing on 21 January the case ‘excited great interest and the court was crowded during the examination of the prisoners. The articles stolen were of the richest possible character, and the bed furniture is said to have belonged to the marriage bed of King George IV’.
³
At their trial at Reading Crown Court on 27 February, Wilson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment. The jury acquitted Hammond, who had been of good character, had worked at the castle for nine years and claimed to have been unaware of the contents of the parcel he had been asked to send.
⁴

From a case in which the criminal had been readily located, Clarke and his Scotland Yard colleagues were about to find themselves tackling a completely new challenge that was to dominate their lives for the next three years. The cause was a resurgence of Irish Nationalism, historically recorded as the ‘Fenian Conspiracy’. This was to involve political-policing activities that, in the present day, would probably be within the purview of Special Branch, a section of the police that did not exist in the 1860s and 1870s. The public record of the activities of Clarke and his colleagues between 1865 and 1868 is scanty and incomplete. However, a police document published on 7 November 1868 provides evidence of the extent of the department’s involvement: ‘Gratuities to Detective Police. – Fenian Conspiracy. – The Secretary of State, on the recommendation of the Commissioner, has been pleased to allow the following gratuities to the several Officers of the Detective Force, on account of duties performed beyond the Metropolitan Police District in connection with the Fenian Conspiracy.’
⁵
There followed a list of awards, totalling £160, to thirteen men of the detective department: the largest amount, £58 19
s
10
d
, to Inspector Williamson; and the second-largest sum, £38 13
s
, to Sergeant George Clarke. The money Clarke received represented about 35 per cent of his annual salary as a sergeant; it was therefore clear that the Fenian conspiracy involved Clarke (and others) in a considerable amount of work, much of it scarcely reported in the press and little retained within the surviving archival records.

Before concentrating on the events of 1865–68, it is necessary to provide some background on the Fenians by way of a concise introduction (which for the reader interested in pursuing the subject in more detail can be developed further by exploring several excellent books on the subject).
⁶

The Fenians

During Clarke’s lifetime Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, electing parliamentary representatives to the House of Commons in London. The Act of Union of 1800 had abolished the Irish Parliament and had united (in practice if not always spirit) Britain and Ireland.
⁷
Popular agitation for the repeal of the Union flourished in Ireland in the early 1840s, but concerted efforts were temporarily halted by a greater emergency. In the summer of 1845 the staple carbohydrate source of the Irish population, the potato, was devastatingly attacked by the fungal disease potato blight, with an estimate of 33 per cent crop losses that year and 75 per cent in 1846. Though the worst was over by 1850, there had been approximately 1.1 million deaths from starvation in Ireland, with the government’s free-market approach exacerbating the problem.
⁸
One possible escape from the grinding poverty and hunger was emigration to other destinations in the UK, to continental Europe, North America and Australasia; many Irish-born men, women and children with the necessary courage and physical resources took that option (about 1.5 million).
⁹

In the summer of 1848, a year in which much of Western Europe was gripped by serious social and economic crisis, a militant group known as ‘Young Ireland’ confronted Irish police at Ballingarry, County Tipperary. The so-called ‘Rising of 1848’ was soon put down, but one of the young men involved, James Stephens, escaped to Paris to fight another day and was joined by, amongst others, John O’Mahony, who had encouraged an attack on Glenbower Constabulary barracks later in the same year.
¹⁰
In Paris the men found an environment of revolutionary republicanism, involving oath-taking and secret fraternities, that would become part of their lives.
¹¹
According to a later colleague (John Devoy), Stephens participated in fighting at the barricades during his time in Paris. ‘Stephens was very proud of his participation in the Paris affair, and thought it qualified him to pronounce judgement on military questions. This was unfortunate for Ireland.’
¹²
Both Stephens and O’Mahony were intellectuals in their republican sentiments, but there the likeness ended. Robert Anderson, a future assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police who was employed by the Home Office at a critical point in the Fenian conspiracy, commented: ‘O’Mahony, I believe was honest; just the sort of man who might have been won by conciliatory and just measures. But Stephens was a vain, self-seeking impostor, whom any competent government would have either bought or suppressed.’
¹³