The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective (14 page)

O’Mahony left Paris for North America in 1853 and Stephens returned to Ireland by 1856. On St Patrick’s Day 1858, in a Dublin timber yard, Stephens founded a secret society dedicated to the establishment in Ireland of an independent democratic republic. Stephens did not initially give the society a name but it eventually became known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).
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O’Mahony had been a driving force behind the 1856 foundation in New York of the Emmet Monument Association, the precursor of the Fenian Brotherhood (FB) that in 1859 became the American counterpart of the IRB under his leadership.
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The term ‘Fenians’ soon emerged as the universal designation for Irish republican revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic.

Stephens established the IRB along the lines of various continental secret societies:

He adopted the cellular principle that had been a feature of the
Societé des familles
, which flourished in France in the 1830s. Thus the new organisation was to consist of circles each headed by a centre or A, known only to the officers immediately below him, nine Bs; each B would command nine Cs and would be known to them alone; each C would be responsible for, and known only to nine Ds, the rank and file … Like members of every secret society, Stephens’s followers were to be oath-bound…
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Stephens himself became known as the head centre and chief organiser of the Irish Republic. The oath that IRB members had to swear took a general form (with local variations): ‘I promise by the Divine Law of God to do all in my power to obey the laws of the Society and to free and regenerate Ireland from the yoke of England. So help me God.’
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Somewhat in contrast, the FB in America was an open and legal organisation, keeping only its inner policies and contacts with Ireland as secret as possible, and was seen by Stephens as the principal source of fundraising to support an insurrection in Ireland.

Leaving others to encourage the swearing-in of members in Ireland, Stephens travelled to America in late 1858, spending six months there to raise money, before travelling to Paris as he feared arrest if he returned to Ireland. Meanwhile in Ireland, newspaper reports of a new secret society in the south-west began to emerge in November 1858, and a £100 reward was issued by the government for information about oath taking, which led to several arrests including one of Stephens’ leading associates, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa.
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By 1860, with Stephens still in France, the IRB had become virtually moribund, but its regeneration started with a visit to Paris and Ireland by O’Mahony and, after his prompting, Stephens agreed to return to Ireland. During O’Mahony’s visit, the two leaders reached agreement on the numbers of men, officers and weapons that would be required as a pre-requisite of any rising by the Irish people.
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The return of Stephens to Ireland helped to enhance recruitment to the IRB there. In America the Civil War (1861–65) undoubtedly caused a setback as priorities shifted towards the men and arms needed for that conflict. However, membership of the FB still made progress, fuelled by the considerable anti-British feeling that Clarke and his colleagues had themselves encountered in August 1864 in New York.

Back in Ireland, two new Fenian initiatives were developed. The first of these was to try to subvert the very large Irish-Catholic element of the British military garrison in Ireland.
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By the mid–1860s there were an estimated 15,000 Fenian members in the British army recruited by agents such as Patrick ‘Pagan’ O’Leary and John Devoy.
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In the second initiative, a Fenian newspaper was launched; the first issue of the
Irish People
appeared on 28 November 1863. The principal staff of the paper were Thomas Clarke Luby (nominal proprietor), John O’Leary (editor), Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa (publisher) and Charles Kickham; all members of the Fenian leadership. It was widely read in Ireland and particularly in regions in mainland Britain where Irish immigrants had concentrated.
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Stephens had encouraged the view within the IRB and FB that 1865 should be the year in which an Irish rising occurred. Funding from the FB in America had improved and, by early in the year, Stephens estimated that he had some 85,000 men organised in Ireland, including a significant number of ‘seduced’ soldiers, but was still insufficiently armed.
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The American Civil War was moving towards its conclusion and there would soon be a considerable quantity of arms available at competitive prices, together with a substantial number of trained and battle-hardened men being discharged from the Union and Confederate armies (including an estimated 190,000 men of Irish parentage).
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In addition, ‘relations between Washington and Westminster were so poor for a few years that Anglo-American war was a credible prospect in many eyes’, a situation that was of considerable potential advantage to the Fenians.
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So, by early 1865, the Fenian threat appeared to be a substantial one and at this point in history we rejoin Clarke and the other detectives at Scotland Yard.

Scotland Yard and the Fenians

February 1865 – July 1866

Before 1865 investigations of the Fenians appear to have been the responsibility of the Irish police, under the direction of politicians and civil servants at Dublin Castle. The Constabulary Act had divided Ireland into four distinct police areas. The cities of Belfast and Derry each had their own police force. Dublin (the capital) had the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), while the rest of the country had the Irish Constabulary (into which the Belfast and Derry forces had merged by 1870). In 1843, the DMP had set up G Division, a plain-clothes detective unit, and had the foresight to divide the unit’s activities into two parts; one dealing with ordinary crimes and the other with political crimes. G Division was later to prove its worth in the field of political espionage and it was said that their detectives knew every dangerous political activist of the day by sight.
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Scotland Yard’s interest in the Fenians seems to have coincided with the ending of the American Civil War, and may have involved Clarke from the outset. On 20 February 1865, Sir Richard Mayne wrote to Major John Greig, the chief constable of Liverpool: ‘I beg you will cause assistance to Serjeant Clarke of the Detective Force to enable him to make effectual enquiry confidentially on the matters he will mention to you.’
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From the point of view of informative detail the letter is somewhat lacking, but it does provide considerable scope for speculation. Firstly, the lack of any detail in the letter suggests that the enquiries related to highly confidential matters; investigations into Fenians would have been categorised in that way. Secondly, at that time Liverpool was the principal English port for arrivals from America, and also an important port of entry for travellers from Ireland. Clarke may have been involved in helping to put into place or carry out some surveillance activity for known Fenians. Whether this speculation has any substance in fact is not certain, but what is known is that O’Mahony did send several FB military envoys from America in 1865 including, in March, Thomas Kelly (who was to have a major role in subsequent events), Francis Millen (in April) and William Halpin (in October), who were to report back to O’Mahony about Stephens’ plans and the resources available for a rising.
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Scotland Yard’s involvement in Fenian investigations became more clear-cut in April 1865, when Mayne received a report from Dublin, suggesting that James Stephens might be in London and requesting help in watching him. A detailed description was provided by the Irish police:

Stephens appears 40 or 45 years of age, about 5 feet 7 or 8 inches high, pretty stout build, rather active appearance, wears all his beard which is pretty long and inclining to grey, eyes red and sore-looking are remarkably so, but this defect in the eyes is not constitutional. Accent and demeanour of a Frenchman, and speaks French tolerably well, as he has resided for a long time in France. He is an Irishman by birth and his French accent may be affected so as to suit his purpose; he dresses very respectably, chiefly in dark clothes and wears a silk hat and cloth cap and when travelling he generally has a brown cape; in damp or wet weather he wears gaiters, and carries a small black leather bag in his hand. He is generally accompanied by his wife who is a pretty neat looking person apparently much younger than he is, and less size; when habitting she wears a dark felt hat with white feather and a shepherds plaid shawl and all times dressed very respectably, chiefly in silk of a color suited to the season; when last seen she wore a black silk dress. Stephens assumes different names in different places and in Dublin he is known as Mr Power – in Cork, Mr Pillar.
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The Scotland Yard detective team were placed on a high level of watchfulness. Though Mayne reported back on 10 May that ‘careful enquiry has been made’, there had been no sightings of James Stephens in London.
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In June 1865, American officers from both the Union and Confederate armies, recognisable by their felt hats and square-toed boots, were beginning to make their way across the Atlantic to Ireland.
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Meanwhile, Clarke was fulfilling his usual role at the Epsom Races, and played a bit-part in an inquiry led by Inspector Thomson into the forgery of Russian rouble notes, which concluded in December that year with convictions and sentences of five to twelve years’ penal servitude for five men.
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On the face of it, the Metropolitan Police was continuing with business as usual.

By September 1865 Ireland was tense. There was continued talk of the Fenians everywhere in the Irish and English press and instances of Fenian marching and drilling became more and more blatant.
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Fenian plans for a rising in Dublin were mislaid and ended up in the hands of Superintendent Daniel Ryan of the DMP and, on 15 September 1865, a government decision to suppress the Fenian newspaper, the
Irish People
, was implemented by a DMP raid on their offices and the arrest, amongst others, of Thomas Luby, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa and John O’Leary; with further arrests in Dublin and Cork and the discovery of further treasonable correspondence.
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The three men were tried on charges of ‘treason felony’ and, in December, were sentenced to long terms of penal servitude. Although the London Metropolitan Police had played little or no part in this, Mayne, in a rare moment of emotion, included in a letter to Sir Thomas Larcom (the undersecretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) the words ‘I rejoice to hear of the conviction of Luby’. In the same letter Mayne also asked Larcom for a description of the Fenian leader in America, and reported that ‘The Police still keep under observation the person here…’.
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Who that ‘person’ was is uncertain; it may have been a reference to a senior Fenian but there were also concerns about possible links between the Fenians and continental republican revolutionaries based in London, as well as with radicals within the Reform League (which had been established in February 1865 to promote the cause of parliamentary reform, including extended suffrage and a secret ballot).
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One of the leading London-based continental revolutionaries was Guiseppe Mazzini, who Scotland Yard had under surveillance at about that time.
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In October 1865 Scotland Yard concerns had focused on the signs of an increasing arms trade. ‘There are five Irishmen in this town buying up all the cheap rifles and revolving pistols they can obtain’, the Mayor of Birmingham wrote in his letter to the Home Office of 20 October. Further correspondence, including letters to Inspector Williamson, highlighted an arms trade that was truly international and not infrequently involved Jewish middlemen.
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The principal Fenian link in this trade was Ricard O’Sullivan Burke who had settled in Birmingham as ‘arms agent’ to the conspiracy in 1865.
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Burke, originally born in County Cork, had immigrated to America and had served in the Union army in the 15th New York Engineers. Under different aliases, he negotiated commercial-scale purchases of arms and ammunition on behalf of the IRB and was to be an important player in future events.
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Meanwhile, Scotland Yard’s surveillance activities of Fenians in London continued and, on 29 October 1865, Williamson submitted a report to Ireland of Clarke’s investigations on alleged Fenian gatherings in London:

… he and PC Campbell of G Division have watched Farrell, Hennessey, Butler and others; they haven’t left London, and still hold meetings at a beer shop on Cleveland Street every Saturday and Sunday evenings – usually about 50 men attend, mostly of labouring classes. Men are told to hold selves in readiness as things are progressing well and action is not far off. The information respecting the language used at the meetings is received from George Tully, a police constable on the great Eastern Railway, who is admitted to the meetings. Clarke thinks that beside these meetings there are no other Fenian meetings in London.
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