Murder & Crime Leeds Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Case One Petit Treason

  The Case of Ann Barber, 1821

  Case Two A Cure for Teething

  The Death of Baby William, 1838

  Case Three Murder in Bell and Bull Yard

  A Case of Domestic Violence, 1838

  Case Four Was it the Salt Man?

  The Mystery of Christopher Winder’s Death, 1841

  Case Five An Evil Ménage à Trois

  The Curious Poisoning of Sarah Scholes, 1842

  Case Six Death of a Young Sweetheart

  The Execution of Thomas Malkin, 1849

  Case Seven Solved by a Pawn Ticket

  The Case of Charles Normington, 1859

  Case Eight Attempted Murder of a Shopkeeper

  The Trial of John Kenworthy, 1860

  Case Nine The Wanton Wife

  The Acquital of John Dearden, 1872

  Case Ten Murder at Oulton Hall

  The Execution of John Darcy, 1879

  Case Eleven Murder at the Tea Shop

  The Death of Margaret Laidler, 1883

  Case Twelve A Lethal Attack

  The Case of Samuel Harrison, 1890

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  As always, writing a book is a team effort and my grateful thanks go to The History Press and, in particular, Beth Amphlett, who has been encouraging throughout. My grateful thanks go to Leeds Local and Family History Library, where the staff could not have been more helpful and obliging.

  I cannot miss the opportunity of mentioning the particular help I received from Eric Ambler of Leeds Town Hall, who gave me a personal guided tour of the courts and the cells where the Leeds Assizes were once held. Knowing that hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners had stayed there over the years, I asked him if there were ghosts still there and he told of a spooky occasion when he was with a colleague and the heavy, metal doors clanged shut behind them. There was no one near them at the time; the doors are extremely heavy and there is certainly no wind down there. Thank you Eric for that little story!

  During the tour, I was able to see the cells beneath the Town Hall, which were very basic, and there certainly would not have been any luxuries for the prisoners – not even bedding. I would also like to thank Mike Roddy, who works at the Town Hall and shared his love of architecture in the city of Leeds, which is a fascinating place to live and work.

  Introduction

  Leeds is an ancient place, which was first mentioned in the Domesday Book. Once the cloth market opened in Briggate in 1684, the burgeoning city began to develop. By the Victorian era, Leeds was a very prosperous place to live. The Industrial Revolution brought an influx of people into the town to work in the factories and workshops and, as a result of this, local businessmen wanted to show off their wealth and affluence, and the city saw massive redevelopment. New buildings such as schools, mechanics institutes and chapels sprang up around the town, paid for by generous benefactors. Leeds officially became a city in 1893, but at the other extreme of all this wealth was severe poverty. Poor housing and overcrowding were common issues in cities around the country at this time, and Leeds was no exception. Such unsanitary conditions led to an outbreak of cholera in 1849, which killed more than 2,000 people. As in every town and city of this period, there was a criminal underbelly that ran against the grain of those working hard to survive, and drunkenness and domestic violence were rife in the city. It is from this time that the cases explored in this book originate.

  Historically, crimes of murder would have first been established at a coroner’s court, where the responsibility of the jury was not to prove the guilt of a man or woman but to identify the corpse and establish the cause of death. Many of these felons were then tried at the magistrates’ court, from where they would be sent to take their trial at the quarterly Assizes at York. The Assizes for the Yorkshire area were held at York Castle until 6 August 1864, when because of the proliferation of crimes in West Yorkshire they were then held at the Leeds Town Hall. Prisoners who were sentenced to death were usually kept and hanged at Armley Gaol, which was described as a grim, foreboding place, opened in 1847. The gaol is still open as HMP Leeds, which sits next to the modern prison of today. Thankfully, unlike York, there was only one public hanging in front of a crowd of people, before executions were then undertaken inside the gaol. As standard practice, the body would be hung for an hour before being cut down and buried in an unmarked grave within the precincts of the gaol. This was the fate of many of the people who murdered others in Leeds.

  The following cases are from the period 1800 to 1900. They are varied and some so complex that even the criminal themselves were incapable of saying why they committed such atrocious acts. Most were committed for gain, whilst others took place through jealousy or after an excess of alcohol. Many of these cases have never been written about before, but all of them happened in and around the city of Leeds all those years ago. Thankfully, little remains of the squalor and overcrowded houses of the past. Beautiful parks abound and today, when I visit Leeds, I find it to be a bustling and rapidly expanding city. What I love most about it is the mix of brand new apartments and commercial buildings alongside older relics of great architectural beauty.

  Margaret Drinkall, 2012

  Case One

  Petit Treason

  The Case of Ann Barber, 1821

  At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a woman could be charged with the crime of petit treason – the murder of her husband. In law, a man’s life was seen as much more valuable than a woman’s, and up to the 1790s women convicted of such a crime could be burned at the stake. The murderess in this case was described in one local newspaper as being ‘a wretched victim of impure desires’. It is probable that she was convicted as much for her morals as the act of murder itself. So keen were they to convict her, in fact, that she stood charged with the crimes of both murder and petit treason.

  Ann Barber was a woman with a past. In 1821, she was forty-four years of age and married to James Barber. She had a child from a previous marriage and two daughters with James Barber, named Hannah, aged 15, and Jane, aged 9. It seems that at this time Ann Barber was cheating on her fifty-year-old second husband with a lodger – a young man from Halifax called William Thompson. At one point, Ann and her lover decided that they were going to elope and they went to live together at Headingley on 21 December. Neighbours reported seeing them leaving the marital home at 6 a.m. with some furniture piled onto a cart. At Headingley, they rented a small cottage, which consisted of one room. They told the landlord, John Holmes, that they were man and wife, but he found out the truth and he threw them out. The couple returned back to Rothwell and, incredibly, her husband allowed the pair of them back into the house. However, the neighbours were not so forgiving and they strongly disapproved of this immoral behaviour. They castigated the couple and James Barber too, calling him a ‘cuckold’. Indeed, so much distaste was shown to Thompson that he moved out of the house in February 1821.

  On Saturday 17 March, Ann Barber roasted an apple for her long-suffering husband, and soon after eating it he became ill. She then warmed him some beer and put sugar in it to soothe him, but he became worse and began to complain of excruciating pain. Despite the fact that there were at least three doctors within a mile of the house, Ann refused to ask one to attend her husband, stating to a neighbour that it would be no use as he would ‘surely be dead before morning’. Her prediction came true and her husband died at 3.30 a.m. the following day.

  On Sunday, 18 March 1821, Ann was arrested and taken to a public house, where she was held prisoner. She was watched over by the const
able’s son whose name was George Wadsworth. Without being asked she told him, ‘I must tell you the truth about it.’ She then confessed to having bought white mercury (arsenic) from a Wakefield druggist, which she had given her husband in two doses – half in the roasted apple and the other half of it in the ale and sugar. She told him that she had done it because she was tired of him. Ann also said that Thompson had offered to marry her ‘if anything ailed her husband’. The story of the murder was in the newspapers and the following day an inquest was held on the body. A surgeon, Mr Hindle, examined the corpse and told the coroner that the stomach contents had large amounts of arsenic in it. At the inquest, Ann denied ever having any arsenic, but the coroner was not satisfied and adjourned the inquest to the following Thursday, in order that more enquiries could be made. The following day she was taken to Wakefield by two constables, the foreman of the jury and the coroner, to visit one of the druggists of that town. In her confession to Wadsworth, she had told him that she had bought a penny worth of white mercury from a druggist called Reinhardt. When the chemist enquired what use it was to be put to, she had told him it was to destroy some mice. The coroner had previously ensured that she was dressed in the same clothes as her previous visit, and she was clearly identified by Mr Reinhardt. Ann Barber categorically denied that she had ever been in his shop, although she reluctantly admitted she might have stood outside the shop. Barber maintained this fiction when the inquest was resumed on Thursday 29 March. The jury quickly found that she was guilty and she was committed to York Castle, for the murder of her husband, at 5 p.m. the same afternoon.

  On Friday, 10 August 1821 at 9 a.m., she appeared at the York Assizes in front of the judge, Mr Justice Holroyd. The reporter of the Leeds Mercury stated, ‘The enormity, and the fortunately rare occurrence of this dreadful crime, excited an unusual degree of interest and the court was crowded, particularly with ladies, at an early hour.’ He described the prisoner as being aged about 45 and displaying no particular interest in the case. When she was asked how she pleaded, she responded, ‘Not guilty,’ in a firm and ‘dead sense of voice’. Such was the abhorrence of the crime, the defence requested that no persons from the neighbourhood of Rothwell be appointed on the jury. John Smirthwaite, Ann Barber’s brother, spoke about her behaviour with Thompson and how it was reviled in the neighbourhood. Although trying to maintain her indifference, she wept as her little daughter Jane, aged 9, was brought into the courtroom. When Jane saw her mother in the dock, she too covered her face with her hands and cried. Ann became upset and asked if she could have her daughter brought to the bar, but this was not allowed. Her defence stated that he ‘would not persist in desiring to examine the child’, and the little girl was led out of the court, still crying.

  The surgeon, Mr Hindle of Oulton, attended the trial and said that he had examined the deceased man on Sunday 18 March. He later completed the post-mortem and found the coating of the stomach to be very much corroded and with strong signs of inflammation. He stated that symptoms of poisoning would have such an effect, and a sample of the stomach wall confirmed that it was arsenic. The lungs were very black, which also indicated that poisoning had occurred. Mr K.B. Reinhardt, druggist and chemist of Wakefield, said that the prisoner went to his shop between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on the afternoon of Friday 16 March. She asked him for a penny worth of white mercury.

  Other witnesses spoke of the good health of the deceased man on the days before his death, and neighbours commented on the agony of his last hours. Thomas Spurr told the jury that he had gone into the house at 9 p.m. on the evening of the 16 March, when his friend complained about extreme pain in his bowels. Spurr had suggested to Ann Barber that she call a doctor, but she told him callously that there was no use, as he would be dead before the morning. Her brother-in-law, John Smirthwaite, appeared and told the jury that Barber was very unhappy at being called a ‘cuckold’, and that it had preyed on his mind. Barber had said that some days ‘felt like jumping into a coal pit and ending it all’.

  Other witnesses stated that the couple had lived amicably together and that she was a hard worker until Thompson had gone to live with them. The deceased man’s mother, Jane Smirthwaite, took the stand and told the court that neighbours would collect around the open door of the house and shout insults to its occupants. Another lodger at the house was a woman called Sarah Parker, who had lived at the house for six years. On the morning of the murder, at 4 a.m., Mrs Smirthwaite had called her from her bed and showed her the body of her son, and Parker helped to lay him out. She described the body as being black with some ‘stuff’ running out of his mouth.

  The judge summed up for the jury and it took them six and a half minutes to find her guilty of petit treason and murder. When asked if she had anything to say as to why the sentence of death should not be carried out, she stated, ‘I am sorry that I should be found guilty by false swearing.’ The judge put the black cap on his head, but before he could speak she gave a loud shriek and fell to the floor of the dock. It was reported that ‘The judge continued with the intonation of the death sentence and grasping the iron bar in front of the dock she looked at him with eyes contorted with terror.’ As he continued, she interrupted him time and time again, pleading, apologising and proclaiming her innocence. He said to her:

  Ann Barber you have been found guilty of the dreadful crime of murder and a murder of a very aggravated nature inasmuch as it was the murder of your husband whom, by your marriage vows, you were bound to love and cherish. You have been convicted on what has appeared to me the clearest evidence. No reasonable creature can have a doubt of your guilt from the clearness of the proof. Your defence has been conducted very ably and all the objections in points of law which could be made were urged by your counsel. Circumstances show that the poison was administered by yourself and on the very day you bought it. So determined were you on his destruction that you that you said it was not necessary to send for a medical man for he would be dead before morning. This effect you had expected from the deadly poison you gave him.

  Urging her to spend what little time she had left in prayer and exhortation to her maker, he then asked if there was any reason why sentence should not be carried out. She appeared bemused by this, until one of the wardresses asked her if she thought that she could be pregnant. She shook her head and then, grabbing the wardress, said to her, ‘Oh save me, save me!’ Still sobbing, she was removed from the court.

  Three days later, on Monday, 13 August 1821, Ann Barber was due to be hung in public at the new drop behind York Castle. It was reported in the Leeds Mercury that on the Saturday night, she confessed her crime to one of the wardresses in charge of her as they sat up talking late into the night. She admitted to poisoning her husband twice, but the next day she retracted her statement. Ann also denied it again when asked by the prison chaplain if she had made such a confession. She told him that she was terrified of dying on the scaffold, and asked if there was any way that her sentence could be deferred. The chaplain told her that there was nothing he could do to postpone the day of execution and urged her to make the best use of the time she had left. Four ministers visited her on Sunday to pray with her, but it was noted that she showed little sign of contrition for the actions which had led her to that point. She was also visited by her mother, her youngest daughter and her sister on the day before the execution. Early the next morning, she was taken to a chamber near to the scaffold, where she waited nervously for the appointed hour to arrive. Soon after 10 a.m., the chaplain, Reverend Flower, arrived and he finally received her last confession. She told him that she had also tried to poison her husband a few days before his actual death, but without success.

  The sentence of death had included that she be ‘drawn to the place of execution’. In order to do this, a kind of hurdle was made from a chair. However, when it was brought into the chamber and attempts were made to sit her in it, there were ‘shrieks in a terrible manner for some time’ from the convicted woman. In the end, struggling wildl
y, she was carried the few hundred yards to the scaffold on which she was to die. She continued to be very agitated, and there was no evidence that she either understood or joined in the prayer with the chaplain. Finally, she faced the assembled crowd, but when she saw the noose she cried out piteously, ‘Oh God save my soul!’ The hangman put the cap over her head and she cried out, ‘Oh Lord Jesus, I am a-coming to thee!’ The bolt was drawn and after a short struggle she died. So great were her struggles whilst on the scaffold that the Lancaster Gazette noted, ‘She manifested vigour of motion and strength of nerve that could not be expected from her appearance and manner at her trial.’ After an hour, her body was given to the Leeds General Infirmary for dissection. However, it was reported that before the dissection took place, the body was laid out for people to see the following day. It was said that the exhibition attracted a large following, mostly made up of women, eager to see the body of this most notorious murderer.

  There is little doubt that Ann Barber was guilty of the crime of murder, and was lucky not to be subjected to the more barbaric fate that other women suffered. The Leeds Mercury reported that on Sunday, 29 March 1776, a woman from Scarborough, called Elizabeth Bordington, was burnt at the stake at York for petit treason. She also had been having an illicit affair and was convicted, along with her paramour, for the murder of her husband. Condemnation against women who murdered was partly based on the long-held belief that they should be care givers. But the fate of Ann Barber pales into insignificance when compared to cases of child murder.

  Case Two

  A Cure for Teething

  The Death of Baby William, 1838