The Invention of Murder (72 page)

153
prosperous audience: Anon., A Full Report of the Trial of James Blomfield Rush, endpapers. a 2d. pamphlet: William Wayte Andrew, Sermon Preached … After the Execution of J.B. Rush, for the Murder of Isaac Jermy, Esq., of Stanfield Hall… (Norwich, Josiah Fletcher, 1849); Samuel Hobson, ‘The Root of all Evil’: A Sermon preached to a village congregation on the Sunday before the Execution of James Blomfield Rush, the Stanfield Murderer (Norwich, Charles Muskett, 1849).

154
up to London standards:
Charles Dickens to John Forster, [2 January 1849],
Letters,
vol. 5, pp.473–4.
and Norwich Castle:
The Staffordshire figures (except for Chestney) are in the P.D. Gordon Pugh Collection in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, with similar figures in the Brighton Museum.

155
Stockton-upon-Tees: Punch,
‘The Mannings at Home’, 1 December 1849.
battle of Waterloo itself:
Mayhew,
London Labour,
vol. 3, pp.88–9.

156
come up a trap:
Old Wild’s production of
Macbeth:
Josephine Harrop,
Victorian Portable Theatres
(London, Society for Theatre Research, 1989), p.62; stage vocabulary in Dickens: Meisel,
Realizations,
p.302; Charles Dickens,
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit,
ed. P.N. Furbank ([1843–4], Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1986), p.595.

157
up comes the Bermondsey tragedy: Mayhew, London Labour, vol. 1, pp.223–4.
died that summer:
The mortality figures appeared regularly in the
Morning Chronicle
and
The Times
during the epidemic. See also Albert Borowitz,
The Bermondsey Horror
(London, Robson, 1988), p.4.

158
1,253 had died: Preston Guardian, ‘Miscellaneous News’, 19 May 1849. artificial heat: Morning Chronicle, 8 January 1849, p.5.

161
a swifter messenger:
‘Our Little Bird’, 1 September 1849;
Illustrated London News,
1 September 1849, p.147.

164
towards the court:
The account of the crime, pursuit, trial and execution of the Mannings is drawn from: Old Bailey trial transcript, ref. t18491029–1890;
Daily News,
20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30 August, 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 17, 20 September, 6, 26, 27, 29, 30 October, 8, 10, 12, 13 November 1849;
Era,
26 August, 9, 16, 23, 30 September, 4, 11, 18 November 1849 [including, ‘ “Boz’s” Description of the Execution’];
Examiner,
18, 25 August, 1, 8 September, 27 October, 17 November 1849;
Glasgow Herald,
‘Science and Crime’, 27 August 1849;
Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper,
19, 26 August, 2, 16, 23, 30 September, 14, 21, 28 October, 11, 18 November 1849;
Observer,
19, 26 August, 2, 9, 30 September, 7, 14, 28 October [4-pp. supplement given over to the trial], 4, 11, 18 November 1849;
The Times,
18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 August, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 20, 22, 28 September, 6, 10, 25, 26, 27 October, 2, 10, 12, 13, 14 [including letter to the editor from Dickens], 13, 14, 17, 19 November 1849 [another Dickens letter]; [Anon.]
An Account of the Last Days, Confessions, and Execution of the Mannings, for the Murder of Patrick O’Connor, at Bermondsey
(Leith, C. Drummond, [1849]);
An Authentic Report of the Trial of the Mannings for the Murder of Patrick O’Connor
(London, G. Lawrence, [1849]);
The Bermondsey Murder, Containing the Discovery and Inquest on the Body. Life of Patrick O’Conner, the apprehensions and examinations of both prisoners together with the Memoirs and Confessions of the Prisoners. With the fullest particulars of the Extraordinary Conduct of Mrs. Manning, with the Trial and Sentence
(London, G. Vickers, [1849]);
The Bermondsey Murder. A Full Report of the Trial of Frederick George Manning and Maria Manning, for the Murder of Patrick O’Connor…
(London, W. M. Clark, 1849);
Full Particulars of the Apprehension of Frederick Manning, for the Murder of Patrick O’Connor… Also the Coroner’s Inquest, and the Examination of his Wife
(London, Birt, [1849]).

165
fee any Actor:
Rychard [sic] Doyle and Percival Leigh,
Manners and Cvstoms of Ye Englyshe
(London, Bradbury & Evans, [1849]), unpaginated.

166
Murder by James Bloomfield Rush: Household Words,
[W.H. Wills, Grenville Murray and? Thomas Walker] ‘German [sic] Advertisements’, October 1850, p.35.
high treason in wartime: Patrick Wilson, Murderess: A Study of Women Executed in Britain since 1843 (London, Michael Joseph, 1971), p.14.
four hangings in twenty-five years: David Philips, Crime and Authority in Victorian England:
The Black Country, 1835–1860
(London, Croom Helm, 1977), pp.172, 256.
husband or lover: Carolyn Conley, The Unwritten Law: Criminal Justice in Victorian Kent
(New York, Oxford University Press, 1991), p.73.
smaller every year: Wilson, Murderess, pp.315–16.

167
2.5 million broadsides each:
These figures are given by Mayhew,
London Labour,
vol. 1, pp.284–5. No doubt they are the figures he was given by patterers and possibly by printers, but whether they were accurate is unknowable.
no use to the patterer Mayhew, London Labour, vol. 1, pp.284–5.
a-going to be murdered:
B.B. Valentine, ‘The Original of Hortense and the Trial of Marcia [sic] Manning’,
Dickensian,
19, 1, 1923, pp.21–2; Mayhew,
London Labour,
vol. 1, pp.232, 234, 301–2.
the second body:
Portrait of William IV: Mayhew,
London Labour,
vol. 1, p.277; double execution image: ‘Execution of the Mannings’ (no place of publication, no printer, [1849]), Bodleian Library, John Johnson Collection, Crime 2 (5).

168
‘Stop Press’ columns:
‘Murder of Mr. O’Connor’ (London, Hodges, [1849]), Bodleian Library, Firth c.17(265).
not worth the printing: Mayhew, London Labour, vol. 1, pp.223.

169
from the sink:
‘The Execution of Mr. and Mrs. Manning. Also a Copy of an Affecting Letter to his Sister …’ (London, Ryle & Co., [1849]), Bodleian Library, John Johnson Collection, Broadsides: Murders and Executions, Large Folder; ‘The Execution of the Mannings’, John Johnson Collection, Crime 2 (5); ‘Trial, Sentence, Confession and the Execution of Mr. & Mrs. Manning, for the Murder of P. O’Connor’ (Newcastle-on-Tyne, John S. Wodson, [1849]), John Johnson Collection, Broadsides: Murders and Executions, 7 (5); one example of several, in
The Times,
‘The Bermondsey Murder. Execution of the Mannings’, 14 November 1849.
spent on barricades: Era, 6 January 1850, p.14.
& unspeakable scene:
Jay Leyda,
The Melville Log
(New York, Gordian Press, 1969), pp.330–31. I am grateful to Philip Hoare for this reference.
a Californian price:
‘Admit the bearer’:
The Times,
13 November 1849, p.4; price of seats:
The Times,
14 November 1849, p.5; erection of scaffolding:
The Times,
12 November 1849, p.5.

170
about 25,000:
John Tulloch, ‘The Privatising of Pain: Lincoln Newspapers, “Mediated Publicness” and the End of Public Execution’, in
Journalism Studies,
Special Issue: ‘The Development of the Provincial Press in England, c.1780–1914’, 7, 3, 2006, pp.437–51.
Manning’s peppermints: The Times,
14 November 1849, p.5, estimated 30,000; the
Examiner,
17 November, p.730, went for 50,000. Both agreed on the number of police, which from its consistency appears to have been issued as an official figure. Basketmen:
Examiner,
Ibid.
detested her:
The ripping chisel: Dickens,
Letters,
vol. 5, p.642; Forster to Bulwer: James Atterbury Davies, ‘John Forster at the Mannings’ Execution’,
Dickensian,
67, 1, 1971, pp.12–15.

171
half-round and back:
Ruskin: Mary Lutyens, ed.,
Effie in Venice: Unpublished Letters of Mrs John Ruskin, written from Venice between 1849–1852
(London, John Murray, 1965), p.76; Thomas Carlyle to John Carlyle: Carlyle,
Letters,
6 October 1849, vol. 24, p.266; Forster: James Atterbury Davies, ‘John Forster at the Mannings’, pp.12–15; Mulready drawings: Anne Rorimer,
Drawings by William Mulready
(London, Victoria and Albert, 1972), pp.114–15; daguerreotypes:
The Times,
19 October 1849, p.2; black satin: Borowitz,
Bermondsey Horror,
pp.291–4. Thomas Hardy to Lady Hester Pinney, cited by Beth Kalikoff, ‘The Execution of Tess d’Urberville at Wintoncester’, in William B. Thesing, ed.,
Executions and the British Experience from the 17th to the 20th Century: A Collection of Essays
(Jefferson, NC, McFarland, 1990), p.111; the link between Hardy, Martha Brown and Maria Manning is, however, my own.
admired on the scaffold: Punch,
‘Fashions for Old Bailey Ladies’, 10 November 1849, p.186.

172
before the Mannings’: Collins, Dickens and Crime, p.234. perished like the beasts: The Times, 14 November 1849, p.5.
and highly instruct: Manchester Guardian, 24 November 1849, p.1; Theatrical Journal, 10, December 1849, p.387.

173
where he was murdered:
Pauline Chapman,
Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors: Two Hundred Years of Crime
(London, Constable, 1984), p.40. Ms Chapman was archivist at Madame Tussaud’s, and much of the material in her book accepts as fact the many legends created for advertising purposes. For background information, therefore, I have relied on Kate Berridge’s
Waxing Mythical.
Advertisement for Burke, 13 February 1829, Liverpool, in Chapman,
Madame Tussaud’s,
pp.45–6; sale of catalogues: Berridge,
Waxing Mythical,
p.301.
fiend in human form:
Mayhew,
London Labour,
vol. 1, p.223.
good-naturedly Vidocq: The Times,
‘M. Vidocq’s Exhibition’, 9 June 1845; Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 1 July 1845, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning,
The Brownings’ Correspondence,
eds. Phillip Kelley, Ronald Hudson, et al. (Winfield, KA, Wedgestone Press, 1984–2007), vol. 10, pp.286–7.

174
so much counted money Punch, 1 September 1849, p.83. convulsed the court with laughter Observer, 6 April 1851, p.8.
sets were produced:
P.D. Gordon Pugh Collection, City Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.
Hero and Peace: Bell’s Life,
‘The Bendrigg (Open) Autumn Meeting’, 16 October 1853;
Bell’s,
‘Caledonian Club Meeting’, 22 January 1854.

176
James Malcolm Rymer:
Cited in Smith,
New Light on Sweeney Todd,
pp.12–13. The suggestions of the identity of the impoverished hack are Smith’s. Rymer’s will: probate, 24 September 1884, CGPLA Eng. & Wales, cited in
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. and stylish illustrations:
Robert Huish,
The Progress of Crime, or, The Authentic Memoirs of Maria Manning
(London, n.p., 1849).
with the intelligence:
[Charles Dickens], ‘A Detective Police Party’,
Household Words,
July 1850, pp.410–11; Le Fanu,
A Lost Name,
p.247.

177
darting fire:
Dickens,
Bleak House,
pp.209, 793–4.

178
involved and crushed:
‘Thomas Waters’,
Recollections of a Policeman
([1849–53], New York, Cornish, Lamport, 1853) pp.10, 125.
nothing escapes him: Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, pp.662, 516; Dickens, Bleak House, pp.278, 361, 768.

179
than this fact:
[Dickens], ‘A Detective Police Party’;
Bleak House,
p.768;
The Times,
20 September 1853, p.9.
open the door quietly, Maria: Cited in Collins, Dickens and Crime, p.344n. between three charities: Lloyd’s Weekly, 24 February 1850, p.7.

180
performing dogs: Poor Joe,
in the Victoria and Albert Theatre Collection; McCormick,
Victorian Marionette Theatre,
pp.117–18, 67–8; Harrop,
Victorian Portable Theatres,
pp.68–9.
grave and a loaded pistol:
[Emma Robinson],
The Gold-Worshippers: or, The Days We Live in. A
Future
Historical Novel
(London, Parry & Co., 1851), vol. 1, pp.65ff, 70; vol. 3, pp.288–90. Biographical information, Anne Humpherys, ‘Emma Robinson’,
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

181
pan-European criminal network:
George Eliot: ‘The Lifted Veil’, in
The Lifted Veil, Brother Jacob,
ed. Helen Small ([1859], Oxford, Oxford World’s Classics, 1999); Braddon: [first published as written by ‘Lady Caroline Lascelles’],
The Black Band, or, The Mysteries of Midnight
([1861–2], London, George Vickers, 18[6-]7), pp.132ff, 142.
which way it was:
Robert Surtees,
Plain, or Ringlets?
(London, Bradbury, Agnew & Co., [1860]), p.179.
with her affections:
Collins,
The Woman in White,
ed. Matthew Sweet ([1860], Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1999), pp.218, 528ff; Mrs Henry Wood,
Mrs Halliburton’s Troubles
([1862], London, Richard Bentley, 1888).