The Invention of Murder (74 page)

221
was therefore acquitted:
The Drouet baby-farm scandal can be found in: Old Bailey trial transcript, ref. t18490409–919;
Daily News,
9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 24 January, 14, 16 April 1849;
Era,
28 January, 22 April 1849;
Examiner
13 January, 21 April 1849;
John Bull,

29 January, 21 April 1849;
Lloyd’s Weekly,
14, 21 January, 11 February, 22 April 1849;
Morning Chronicle,
6, 8, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20 January, 1 February, 14 April 1849;
The Times,
13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 24, 25, 27, 31 January, 1 February, 13 April, 16 April 1849. The four articles by Dickens in the
Examiner
are: ‘The Paradise at Tooting’, 20 January 1849; ‘The Tooting Farm’, 27 January 1849; ‘A Recorder’s Charge’, 3 March 1849; ‘The Verdict for Drouet’, 21 April 1849.

222
under atrocious circumstances: The Times,
‘Central Criminal Court’, 18 April 1849; Arthur Conan Doyle,
The Hound of the Baskervilles
([1902], Harmondsworth, Penguin, 2007), pp.89, 160.

223
been so laid upon him: Dickens, Bleak House, pp.180, 417.
the laws of your country:
‘The Wonderful Drama of Punch and Judy’, by ‘Papernose Woodensconce’ (1854), cited in George Speaight,
Punch and Judy: A History
(London, Studio Vista, 1970), p.148.

224
other kinds of murder: Cited in Conley, Unwritten Law, p.110. infanticide quite as murder: Pall Mall Gazette, 24 September 1870, p.10.

225
less than six months: ‘A Suffolk Clergyman’, An Address to My Parishioners and Neighbours on the Subject of the Murder lately committed at Polstead, p.5; Martin J. Wiener, Men of Blood: Violence, Manliness and Criminal Justice in Victorian England (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.124–5; Conley, Unwritten Law, p.110.
opposite of concealment: Philips, Crime and Authority, p.256.
three months’ hard labour Lionel Rose, The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in Britain, 1800–1939 (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), pp.39–40.

226
suspicious infant deaths a year: ‘Infanticide and Illegitimacy’, Journal of the Statistical Society, 28, 1865, p.420.
for a post-mortem: The Times, 20 January 1845, p.3.

227
is a murderess:
Revd Henry Humble, ‘Infanticide, Its Cause and Cure’, in Revd Orby Shipley, ed.,
The Church and the World: Essays on Questions of the Day
(London, Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer 1866), p.57.
the age of five:
Margaret L. Arnot, ‘Understanding Women Committing Newborn Child-Murder in Victorian England’, in Shani D’Cruze, ed.,
Everyday Violence in Britain, 1850–1950
(Harlow, Longman, 2000), p.61.
reconcile impossibilities:
Cited in Andrew Mangham, ‘The Detective Fiction of Female Adolescent Violence’, in
Clues,
25, 1, 2006, p.70.

228
anatomy-schools for dissection: 2 & 3 Will.IV.c.75.
at two years: Rose, Massacre of the Innocents, pp.136–7, 138.

230
was eventually transported:
The details of the Sandys case, the inquest and the trial can be found in:
John Bull,
7 August 1841;
Liverpool Mercury,
30 October 1840, 6 August 1841;
Manchester Guardian,
21, 28, 31 October, 2 November 1840, 14 April 1841, 7 August 1840,

30
April 1842; Manchester Times and Guardian, 10 April 1841, 16 April 1842; Morning Chronicle, 5, 6 August 1840; Newcastle Courant, 30 October 1840; Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser, 1 October 1840; Observer, 1 November 1840.

231
deaths of the deceased: The Times, 7 August 1847, p.5; Morning Chronicle, 2 August 1847, p.4.
at last it is done:
‘Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present’,
Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine,
10, June 1843, pp.341–8.
pay all our debts:
Benjamin Disraeli,
Sybil,
ed. Sheila M. Smith ([1845], Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1981), p.158.
they ate through:
Broadside reprinted in Vivian De Sola Pinto and Allan Edwin Rodway, eds.,
The Common Muse: An Anthology of Popular British Ballad Poetry, XVth-XXth Century
(London, Chatto & Windus, 1957), pp.374–6.
afraid of the street Irish:
‘The Life of the Man that was Hanged’ and other cocks, in Hindley,
Curiosities of Street Literature,
passim; cocks based on real people, Mayhew,
London Labour,
vol. 1, pp.228–9.

232
money arrived:
[Harriet Martineau], ‘A Death-Watch Worth Dreading’,
Once a Week,
2, December 1859, pp.18–22.
must have increased:
Cited in [Richard H. Horne], ‘Household Crime’,
Household Words,
4, 13 December 1851, pp.277–81.
find no trace of it:
Anon., ‘The Woman in White’, unpublished playscript, for performance at the Royal Surrey Theatre, October 1860, Lord Chamberlain’s Plays, BL Add MSS 52997 (B).

234
weaker vessel:
Both cited in Judith Knelman,
Twisting in the Wind: The Murderess and the English Press
(Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1998), p.60.
pecuniary profit: Illustrated London News, 1 September 1849, pp.150–51.
Increase of Secret Poisoning: Coroners’ Society reports and London Medical Journal, in
Burney, ‘Poisoning of No Substance’, p.68.
of secret poisoning:
Anon., ‘The Doings of William Palmer, the Alleged Wholesale Poisoner: His Public Frauds and Private Trickeries …’ (London, Frederick Mitchell, [1856]), p.19.
stable for twenty years: Owen Davies, Murder, Magic, Madness: The Victorian Trials of Dove and the Wizard (Harlow, Pearson, 2005), p.92.
the following decade:
Ian A. Burney,
Poison, Detection and the Victorian Imagination
(Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2006), pp.20, 36.

235
ever prepare him: The Times,
‘Lancaster Assizes’, 18 September 1816. I have found no other reference to Sarah Holroyd’s case in the forty-one newspapers I have based my research on. Nor is there any mention in fifty-six magazines, apart from one account in the
Weekly Entertainer, or, Agreeable and Instructive Repository,
‘Lancashire Assizes’, 56, September 1816, pp.787–9.

236
swearing her innocence:
The account of Sarah Dazley’s inquests, trial and execution has been compiled from:
John Bull,
22 April, 5 August 1843;
Lloyd’s Weekly,
23 April, 13 August 1843;
Morning Chronicle,
22 April 1843;
The Times,
15, 22 April, 8 August 1843.

237
paltry gathering Daily News,
22 August 1849, p.5; population figure from Post Office Directory for Sussex, 1851.
guilty of murder:
The case of Sarah Freeman, in
Age and Argus,
18 January 1845;
Bristol Mercury,
11, 18 January, 1 March, 12, 26 April 1845;
Era,
19 January 1845;
Examiner,
18 January 1845;
John Bull,
11, 18 January, 28 April 1845;
Lloyd’s Weekly,
19 January 1845;
Morning Chronicle,
13, 21 January 1845;
The Times,
13 January 1845.

238
wants verification: Examiner,
‘Palmer’s End’, 21 June 1856.
of frightful duration:
Mary Gallop’s trial and execution:
Era,
22 December 1844;
Examiner,
28 December 1844;
Hull Packet and East Riding Times,
13 December 1844;
John Bull,
14, 28 December 1844;
Lloyd’s Weekly,
15 December 1855;
Morning Chronicle,
25, 31 December 1844;
Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser,
14 December 1844;
The Times,
10, 30 December 1844.

239
London contemporary paper: Morning Chronicle, 2 August 1847, p.4; Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 7 August 1847; John Bull, 31 July, 2 August 1847; Bristol Mercury, 14 August 1847.

242
strong
medical proof: Both the Treasury Secretary and Taylor cited in Burney,
Poison, Detection and the Victorian Imagination,
p.32.
sentenced to death:
The inquests, hearings and trials of Sarah Chesham:
Daily News,
19 September 1846, 13 March 1847, 8 June 1850, 7, 26 March 1851;
Examiner,
7 September 1850, 8, 29 March 1851;
Ipswich Journal,
22 August 1846, 12 September, 8 March 1851;
John Bull,
5, 19 September 1846, 13 March 1847, 7, 14 September 1850, 8, 29 March 1851;
Lloyd’s Weekly,
20 September, 25 October 1846, 9 June, 8, 15 September 1850, 13 April 1851;
Morning Chronicle,
23 September 1850, 26 March 1851;
Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser,
30 January 1847, 1 June 1850, 29 March 1851;
Reynolds’s Weekly News,
8 September 1850, 9, 30 March 1851;
The Times,
5, 19 September, 24 October 1846, 12, 13 March 1847, 5, 11, 23 September 1850, 7, 26 March 1851. There were also a number of broadsides retelling the story of Sarah Chesham – far more than for any other of these women. In particular, ‘Sarah Chesham’s Lamentation’, in ‘Ballads and Other Broadside Sheets Published by J. Pitts … (1665–1870)’, British Library, shelfmark 11621.k.4; ‘Trial, Confession, and Awful Execution, of Thomas Drory, For the Murder of his Sweetheart. Also, the Execution of Mrs. Sarah Chesham’ (Gateshead, Robert Rankin, [1851]), Bodleian, Harding B.9(243); ‘Sarah Chesham’s Lamentation, for the Murder of Richard Chesham, her Husband, by Poison’ (London, Hodges, [1851]), Bodleian Library, Firth b.25 (406); ‘Copy of Verses, Written on the fate of Thomas Drory, and Sarah Chesham’ (London, Ryle & Co., [1851]), Bodleian Library, Firth c.17(260); ‘[text missing] For the Murder of Richard Chesham, her Husband, by Poison’ (London, Hodges, [1851]), Bodleian Library, Firth b.25(382).

244
acquittal for his client:
For the inquest, trial and execution of Mary May:
Bell’s Life,
16 July 1848;
Ipswich Journal,
29 July, 19 August 1848;
John Bull,
29 July, 18 August 1848;
The Times,
25 July, 15, 29 August 1848; for the inquest and trial of Hannah Southgate,
Bell’s Life,
3 September 1848;
Ipswich Journal,
9 September 1848, 10 March 1849;
John Bull,
2, 9 September 1848;
Lloyd’s Weekly,
11 March 1849;
Morning Chronicle,
5 September 1848;
Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser,
2 September 1848;
The Times,
31 August, 5 September 1848, 10 March 1849. Don Budds,
Arsenic and Old Wix: The True Account of Mary May and Hannah Southgate …
(Colchester, privately published, 1995) contains excellent research into local parish archival material.

245
this troublesome world:
Eliza Joyce’s story appeared in:
Examiner,
27 July 1844;
Hull Packet and East Riding Times,
26 July, 9 August 1844;
John Bull,
27 July 1844;
The Times,
24 July 1844.
to view her body:
‘Trial, Confession, and Awful Execution, of Thomas Drory, For the Murder of his Sweetheart’, Bodleian, Harding B.9(243).
Bulwer’s novel Lucretia: Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Lucretia, or, The Children of the Night
(Leipzig, Berh. Tauchnitz Jun., 1846).
given the arsenic: Punch,
July-December 1849, pp.96–7.

247
to a burial club:
Katherine Watson,
Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and Their Victims
(London, Hambledon & London, 2004), p.42; Knelman,
Twisting in the Wind,
pp.67–8.
medically educated: Punch:
‘Sensation Times’, 9 May 1863, p.193.
almost lenient:
The case of Eliza Foxall and Mary Anne Scrafton can be found in
Northern Echo,
14 September, 5 November 1887, and
The Times,
14 September, 7 November 1887, 13 March 1888. None of the other newspapers or magazines I have used reported on this case at all.

248
lemon-coloured kid gloves:
Cited in A.G. Allen, ‘Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, Poisoner’, in Thomas Seccombe, ed.,
Lives of Twelve Bad Men: Original Studies of Eminent Scoundrels by Various Hands
(London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1894), p.296.

251
he died there:
There is a lack of contemporary reportage on Wainewright, owing to the guilty plea and the charge of forgery rather than murder. Two reports can be found, in the
Examiner,
9 July 1837, and the
Morning Chronicle,
27 June 1838.
Reynolds’s Miscellany of Romance
retold the case a few decades later, ‘Wainwright [sic], the Poisoner’, 11, August 1853, p.22, as did
All the Year Round,
‘Old Stories Re-told. Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (Janus Weathercock), the Poisoner’, 17, 5 January 1867, pp.34–41; at the end of the century, there was a summary, A.G. Allen, ‘Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, Poisoner’, in Thomas Seccombe, ed.,
Lives of Twelve Bad Men.
A number of twentieth-century accounts attempt to make up for this lack. They include: Jonathan Curling,
Janus Weathercock: The Life of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright
(London, Thomas Nelson, 1938); John Lindsey, [pseud. Muriel St Claire Byrne],
Suburban Gentleman: The Life of Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, Poet, Painter and Poisoner
(London, Rich & Cowan, 1942); Andrew Motion,
Wainewright the Poisoner
(London, Faber, 2000); Charles Norman,
The Genteel Murderer
(New York, Macmillan, 1956); Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly,
Wainewright the Poisoner: An Example of Andrew Motion’s ‘High Scholarship’
(London, Vanity Press of Bethnal Green, 2000). All of these books, however, must be handled with caution. In the absence of objective documentation they rely on the later reputation of Wainewright, much (most?) of which is supposition and rumour. None takes into account the norms of crime reporting in the nineteenth century, and thus they unwittingly reproduce as fact many of the flights of fancy which were routine in murder cases.