The Wicked Boy (37 page)

the British author Hugh E. M. Stutfield. . .
In an article entitled ‘Tommyrotics',
Blackwood
'
s
Edinburgh Magazine,
June 1895. See
Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (eds),
The Fin de Siècle: A
Reader in Cultural History, c.1880–1900
(2000).

An
‘
Illustrated London News
'
reporter. . .
See ‘Picturesque Aspects of the East End III', 9 April 1892.

The French novelist Emile Zola. . .
See
Manchester Guardian
, 3 October 1893.

The English writer Ford Madox Hueffer. . .
In
The Soul of London
(1905).

Walter Besant. . .
In
East London
.

‘
As there is a darkest Africa. . .
' From William Booth,
In Darkest England and the Way Out
(1890).

The American novelist Jack London. . .
‘Far better to be a people of the wilderness and desert, of the cave and the squatting-place, than to be a people of the machine and the Abyss,' writes London in
The People of the Abyss
(1903).

CHAPTER 5: A KISS GOODBYE

an interview with Mary Jane Burrage. . .
See
Star
, 18 July 1895.

certain rumours. . .
The
Illustrated Police News
of 27 July 1895 reported that Robert resented his mother for not giving him enough spending money, but the suggestion that Emily Coombes was a heavy drinker seems not to have appeared elsewhere in the press.

he was declared bankrupt. . .
The petition against him was heard on June 1873 and his creditors received their first dividends (of 1/6d for every pound they were owed) in July 1874. See
London
Gazette
, 27 June 1873 and 8 July 1874.

Emily was born. . .
The Register for Births and Baptisms in India shows that she was born in India on 1 March 1858, the daughter of George and Tryphena Allen, both natives of Poole in Dorset. The story about the rescue on the river Indus was reported in the
Illustrated Police News
, 3 August 1895. Her father's naval service is detailed in United Kingdom Merchant Navy Seamen Records 1835–1941, TNA: BT113.

Robert, their first son. . .
According to his birth certificate, Robert was born in 23 Edwards Street, ten minutes' walk north of his grandparents' house in Three Colt Street. At the age of seven, he was enrolled at Farrance Road board school, Limehouse, where Nattie joined him a year later. See Grange Road School Admissions Register 1888–1906, Newham Archives, Stratford Library. Upon the death of the boys' grandfather in 1882, their father temporarily moved the family into the house in Three Colt Street.

The people of East London. . .
From Booth,
Life and Labour of the People in London, Vol. 1
(1889). A docker's wife in Morrison's
Tales of Mean Streets
explains why she and her family are leaving Limehouse: ‘My 'usband finds it too far to get to an' from Albert Docks mornin' and night. So we're goin' to West 'Am.'

the National Line vessels
‘
England
'
and
‘
France
'
. . .
See N. R. P. Bonsor,
North Atlantic Seaway: An
Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New
(1955); Arthur J. Maginnis,
The Atlantic Ferry: Its Ships, Men and Working
(3rd edition, 1900); F. E. Chadwick, John H. Gould, J. D. J. Kelley, William H. Rideing, Ridgely Hunt and A. E. Seaton,
Ocean Steamships: A
Popular Account of their Construction, Development, Management and Appliances
(1891); and John Kennedy,
The History of Steam Navigation
(1903).

By 1895 the company had abandoned the passenger trade. . .
See
Leeds Mercury
, 29 December 1894.

As a chief steward. . .
For details of rations, see NMM: RSS/CL/1895/60015
SS France
and NMM: RSS/CL/1895/29996
SS England
. For a steward's status and duties, see Frank Thomas Bullen,
The
Men of the Merchant Service
(1900).

Coombes was paid. . .
For pay of Coombes and his shipmates, see NMM: RSS/CL/1895/60015
SS
France
and NMM: RSS/CL/1895/29996
SS England
.

There was talk. . .
At the annual meeting, reported the
Sheffield Evening Telegraph
of 28 February 1895, some shareholders suggested that the company be wound up.

a friend of Coombes. . .
This was probably his wife's brother-in-law John William Macy, an American master mariner who had married Emily's older sister Mary in 1866. Macy was said to be a good friend of Robert Coombes senior and he was in the United States at the time.

he gave interviews to several newspapermen. . .
The reports appeared in the
New York Times
,
Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette
and
New York Tribune
on 22 July 1895. A fanciful article also appeared in the New York
Sun
that day, claiming that ‘Mr Coombs stood on the porch of his little vine-covered cottage in Plaistow. . . and bade good-by to his wife and two sons', with the words, ‘Boys, take care of your mother'.

‘
I found him to be my apprentice. . .
' Letter published in
West Ham Herald
on 27 July 1895.

CHAPTER 6: THIS IS THE KNIFE

At six o
'
clock. . .
For the routine at Holloway, see note to p.52.

In the prison register. . .
Walker described his form of mental debility as ‘recurrent mania' and the ‘probable cause' as ‘?injury to head at birth'. See
Report of the Commissioners of Prisons and the Directors of Convict Prisons 1895–96, for the Year Ended 31 March 1896
, PP, 1896, XLIV, 235.

‘
London Standard
'
. . .
22 July 1895.

‘
Evening News
'
. . .
22 July 1895.

Charlie Sharman. . .
Sharman was born in Great Baddow, Essex, in 1850; his father was a schoolteacher and his mother, who was blind, played organ in the village church. As a young clerk, Sharman worked in Chelmsford, Essex, but was driven out of town in 1887 after being accused of indecent assaults
–
see
Chelmsford Chronicle
, 8 May 1891. For his law suits against his former clerk, see
Essex Newsman
of 2 May 1891,
Chelmsford Chronicle
of 15 May 1891 and
Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald
of 16 May 1891. For his defence of the Walthamstow verger, see
Chelmsford Chronicle
of 23 March 1894. For his success in the general election see
Chelmsford Chronicle
of 20 November 1896.

‘
Star
'
. . .
25 July 1895.

‘
Evening News
'
. . .
26 July 1895.

To wear a shirt with a collar. . .
In
The Nether World
(1889), George Gissing notes that navvies, scaffolders, costermongers and cab touts usually went collarless, while shopmen and mechanics were likely to sport collars.

On the ground floor, Orpwood explained. . .
According to the criteria laid out in Joseph Rowntree's survey of working-class housing in York in 1900, the Cave Road terrace was of the type designed for relatively well-off working-class families. The best workmen's dwellings were slightly larger, with five rather than four rooms, but like the Coombes residence they had a bay window, cornicing, a small railed garden to the front, frontages of fifteen to seventeen foot and a scullery behind the back parlour. The front parlour in such houses was used on Sundays as a room in which to receive guests, and otherwise only occasionally
–
for letter-writing or music practice, for instance. See John Burnett,
A Social History of Housing 1815–1985
(1986).

‘
Sun
'
. . .
29 July 1895.

‘
News of the World
'
. . .
28 July 1895.

‘
Illustrated Police Budget
'
. . .
27 July 1895.

‘
Daily Chronicle
'
. . .
Quoted in
Evening News
, 27 July 1895.

Cesare Lombroso. . .
For instance, in
The Criminal Man –
the third edition, published in 1884, drew heavily on theories of degeneration.

‘
Evening News
'
. . .
26 July 1895.

the wicked Mr Hyde. . .
In
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
(1886), Robert Louis Stevenson describes Hyde as like ‘a schoolboy' who casts off his burden of respectability to ‘spring headlong into the sea of liberty'. He has ‘the light step, leaping pulses and secret pleasures' of youth, as well as being an atavistic, ‘ape-like' creature. See Claudia Nelson,
Precocious Children and Childish
Adults: Age Inversion in Victorian Literature
(2012).

A group of doctors. . .
Quoted in
Evening News
, 27 July 1895.

‘
the profoundest impression. . .
' See Ernest Jones,
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud
(1964).

‘
East London Advertiser
'
. . .
Interview published on 3 August 1895.

‘
Cockney Bob
'
s Big Bluff 
'
. . .
Published by Beadle's Dime Library in New York on 2 May 1894, as
Fire-Eye: the Thugs
'
Terror; or, Cockney Bob
'
s Big Bluff
, and reprinted in London in 1895 by the Aldine O'er Land and Sea Library.

CHAPTER 7: CHRONICLES OF DISORDER

‘
Leytonstone Express
'
. . .
3 August 1895.

‘
Sun
'
. . .
29 July 1895.

‘
India in London
'
. . .
See
Daily Telegraph,
2 July 1895, and
Evening News,
3 July 1895.

The Children
'
s Act of 1889. . .
Law of Parent and Child
, a guide of 1895, quoted Lord Coleridge: ‘It is not enough to show neglect of reasonable means for preserving and prolonging the child's life; but to convict of manslaughter it must be shown that the neglect had the effect of shortening life.' For the Peculiar People cases, see also Behlmer,
Child Abuse and Moral Reform in England
.

Lewis announced that he was
‘
sick and tired
'
. . .
See
Evening News
and
Daily Chronicle
, 26 July 1895.

Lewis berated the parents. . .
See
Barking, East Ham & Ilford Advertiser
, 3 August 1895.

penny dreadfuls. . .
For the history of the penny dreadful, see John Springhall,
Youth, Popular
Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta Rap, 1830–1997
(1999); E. S. Turner,
Boys Will be Boys: The Story of Sweeney Todd, Deadwood Dick, Sexton Blake, Billy Bunter, Dick Barton, et al
(1948); Robert J. Kirkpatrick,
From the Penny Dreadful to the Ha
'
penny Dreadfuller: A Bibliographical History of the Boys
'
Periodical in Britain, 1762–1950
(2013); Kelly Boyd,
Manliness and the Boys
'
Story Paper in Britain: A Cultural History, 1855–1940
(2002); Charles Ferrall and Anna Jackson,
Juvenile Literature and British Society 1850–1950: The Age of Adolescence
(2009); Joseph Bristow,
Empire Boys: Adventures in a Man
'
s World
(1991); and Troy Boone,
Youth of Darkest England: Working-Class Children at the Heart of Victorian Empire
(2005).

penny bloods. . .
‘Bloods is what we calls 'em in the trade,' a London shopkeeper told the journalist John Foster Fraser in 1899
–
quoted in Fraser's
Vagabond Papers
(1906). ‘“Penny bloods” is the trade name for penny dreadfuls', reported the
Bristol Mercury
on 27 September 1895.

‘
Tons of this trash. . .
'
Motherwell Times
, 2 March 1895

proper novels for boys. . .
See
Freeman
'
s Journal
, 6 November 1895 and
Fortnightly Review
, November 1895.

a
‘
St James
'
s Gazette
'
journalist. . .
His articles were published on 25, 26, 29 and 30 July 1895. He reported that the authors of penny dreadfuls were paid three and a half to four shillings per thousand words. The speed at which the bloods were composed is apparent in some of the stories in Robert's collection. William G. Patten's
Cockney Bob
'
s Big Bluff
, published by Beadle's in 1894, is laden with errors of typing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, as if written in a tremendous rush and printed without being read over: ‘Her eyes unclosed,' writes Patten, ‘at the very instant when his fingers were present over her lips' (that is, the heroine opened her eyes just as the villain was about to touch her lips); ‘The open air was grateful to the lovers after the time they had spent in the mysterious cottage.'