by Diane Janes
Chapter Thirty
Tuesday 6 February 1934
His Majesty’s Prison, Armley, Yorkshire
It seemed to John Wilton that the tension which had infused the entire prison in the hours before, during and after the execution, still hung heavily upon the governor himself. It would not have been fitting of course, for Wilton to have asked anything about what had taken place, during Ernest Brown’s last moments. He knew that it was a long walk between the condemned cell and the place of execution. Someone had once told him that the walk at Armley was the longest in the country. As the man who dealt with all the governor’s correspondence, he was aware that there were plans afoot to install new, modern execution facilities in all the country’s prisons, which would remove the necessity for the prisoner to walk more than a few feet before he came face to face with the noose, but there were no such arrangements in place at Armley yet.
Wilton had not been in post long enough to know precisely what delicate protocol ought to be observed in the aftermath of an execution, but he did know that the various contents of the manila folder on his desk had to be attended to by the governor himself, and that because there were some personal letters from the prisoner involved, there could not be any undue delay.
The execution had been over for a couple of hours now. Ernest Brown had been officially certified dead, the governor had bid farewell to the various dignitaries whose duty had brought them there this morning, and had his usual morning tea and biscuits brought in at eleven o’clock. Wilton decided that the moment was right. He rose from his desk, collecting up the folder as he did so, walked the four steps across the red and black carpet which took him to his customary position, immediately in front of his boss’s desk, and said, ‘I have the last letters written by the prisoner Brown here sir, and also one written to Brown’s parents from the chaplain.’
‘Very well, pass them over.’ The governor didn’t look up as the file was put into his outstretched hand.
Wilton continued to stand before the desk, waiting silently while his boss scrutinised each sheet in turn. Even if he had not already perused them, Wilton could easily have learned their contents, since he numbered among his various talents, the ability to read handwriting from upside down.
The uppermost piece of correspondence was the lengthy letter which the prisoner had written to Miss Florence Morton, the day before. Though he must have guessed the contents, the governor took enough time to read it all the way through, before putting it to one side and saying, without raising his head, ‘Obviously this cannot possibly go any further. As we learned from the Thorne case, and others before it, letters such as these always find their way into the newspapers, and the service doesn’t exist to give guilty men a platform for publicity – not even posthumous publicity.’
Wilton said nothing. He was well aware of the regulations, and had guessed the moment he began to read it, that the letter to Miss Morton would never be sent, but censorship of a prisoner’s final correspondence was always a matter for the governor himself.
‘Hmm.’ The governor glanced through the second letter, which was addressed to Brown’s mother and was much shorter. ‘Mostly domestic matters, asking her to take good care of his little daughter and to make sure that a small loan from one of his friend’s gets repaid – strange how a tiny debt can play on a man’s mind at such a time. What a pity he mentions that he has written to Miss Morton. Well, we obviously can’t let that one go either, Wilton, as it gives away the existence of this other letter, I’m afraid.’
So saying he laid the letter to Brown’s mother on top of the one to Florence.
‘Now then, what does the padre have to say?’ It was a rhetorical question. The governor was already beginning to read it as he spoke.
Dear Mrs Brown,
The last thing Ernest asked me to do was write to you. He sends his love and asks especially about his daughter.
I trust it will be a comfort to you to know that we prayed together and that he found peace with God and prayed for you all. The last words I read to him were from Psalm 46, The Lord is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear.
I send you my sincere sympathy and my prayers.
Yours sincerely
Reverend George Hadfield
The governor hesitated and sighed. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Reverend Hadfield really ought to know better. It is not the role of the prison service to sympathise with the family of a convicted man. Expressions of sympathy in respect of a man convicted of a brutal murder are wholly inappropriate. Keep it in the file with the others.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Wilton watched as the governor squared the papers against the solid surface of his desk and replaced them in their manila cover. He reached out at the appropriate moment to take the folder back. As he returned to his desk, he found that the blotter, pen and inkstand had become unaccountably blurred. It was no secret that Reverend Hadfield – even without the benefit of seeing Brown’s final version of what had taken place – had come to believe that the man was innocent. But whether the condemned man was guilty or not, Wilton thought, what had his poor family done to be denied whatever little bit of comfort such a letter might bring?
Chapter Thirty One
Martin’s Nest
Holywell Green
Yorkshire
7 February 1934
To the Home Secretary.
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you regarding Ernest Brown, who was executed yesterday after being found guilty of the murder of my brother Frederick Morton. My father and I continue to be deeply troubled about this matter and it would greatly put our minds at rest to know whether or not Ernest Brown made some kind of additional statement or confession before he died. I would be most grateful for any information you are able to provide for us.
Yours sincerely
Florence Ellison Morton
The Office of the Home Secretary
Whitehall
London
8 February 1934
Dear Miss Morton,
The Home Secretary has asked me to write and inform you that he has been in contact with His Majesty’s Prison, Armley and is able to confirm that Ernest Brown made no final confession or statement regarding the circumstances of the crime.
The Home Secretary asks me to again offer his condolences on your loss.
Yours sincerely
Charles Featherstone
On behalf of Sir John Gilmour – Home Secretary.
Chapter Thirty Two
Monday 19 February 1934
Martin’s Nest, Holywell Green, Yorkshire
Florence was deeply engrossed in the household accounts when she heard the thud thud of the front door knocker. Bother! Who on earth could it be at this time of day? Not a tradesman, who would surely have gone round to approach cook at the back door, and it would hardly be someone paying calls, as it was far too early in the day for that. It was bound to be some tiresome interruption that she could very well do without. She glanced out of the morning room window, but there was no sign of a motor car at the front of the house. Oh well, Hilda or Grace would answer it and let her know who was there soon enough.
In fact it was several minutes before there was a tap on the door, followed by the appearance of Hilda, who rather than remaining in the doorway, entered the room and closed the door behind her in a somewhat conspiratorial fashion.
‘Begging your pardon, Miss Florence, but there’s some women outside, asking if they might see you.’
‘Don’t you mean ladies, Hilda?’
‘No mum. I don’t.’ Hilda was defensive yet emphatic. ‘They say their names are Brown, mum. Mrs Brown and Miss Doris Brown.’ She dropped her voice and added, ‘I believe they are the mother and sister of that man who was hanged, mum. Should I send them away?’
‘Certainly not. How ever have they got all the way out here? Has someone driven them?’
‘No, Miss Florence,’ Hilda favoured her mistress with the look which she always used when confronted with what she felt to be a foolish enquiry. ‘I ’spect they took the bus and then walked it from the bottom road.’
‘Of course, of course. They must be absolutely frozen. Is the fire lit in the drawing room?’
‘Yes, Miss Florence.’
‘Then show Mrs Brown and her daughter in there. I will come in directly.’
‘Into the drawing room, mum?’ Hilda made no attempt to disguise her incredulity.
‘Yes, Hilda,’ Florence said very firmly. ‘Show them into the drawing room and then kindly bring in some tea – and… and some cakes or biscuits, or something, whatever cook has to hand.’
It was the toss of the head as Hilda departed that did it. I’m giving that girl notice at the end of the month, Florence decided, as she swiftly checked that the cap was back on her pen, and from force of habit patted her hair into place.
She crossed the hall to the drawing room, where she found the two women standing awkwardly on the central rug, no doubt very conscious of the house parlour maid’s reluctant welcome, which had probably been accompanied by a pointed up and down look at their rather shabby winter coats and worn out shoes. It was strange, Florence had often thought, the way that snobbery was at its sharpest among the servant class. If Florence in any way noticed how out of place the two women looked in the drawing room, she gave no sign, instead approaching each in turn and giving their hands a welcoming squeeze.
‘Thank you for coming all this way,’ she said. ‘Please do sit down near the fire. I think you must have come to tell me something about Ernest – perhaps something that he told you at the very end?’
A Postscript From The Author
Many readers will be surprised by the somewhat bleak ending to this novel. If this story had been entirely fictional, there would surely have been a last minute reprieve and Ernest Brown would not have been hanged. A really ambitious (and particularly unrealistic) author might have engineered a scenario in which it was Florence Morton herself who somehow effected his acquittal and release. She would have been there to meet him at the prison gates when he emerged, blinking, from Armley jail. They would have got into her waiting motor car together, with more than a hint of romance in the air. But this story is based on fact and though a substantial degree of poetic licence has been employed in respect of characterisations and dialogue, with some minor characters invented and events sometimes compressed or slightly adjusted for the sake of clarity, the basic facts have not been altered. Ernest Brown was convicted of the murder of Frederick Morton and after a failed appeal, a considerable public campaign, and even a last minute dash down to London by the prison governor on the eve of the execution, on 6 February 1934 Ernest Brown paid the ultimate price which the law then exacted for the crime of murder.
It is a matter of historical record that Florence Morton did not believe that the full facts regarding her brother’s death had come out at Brown’s trial, that she visited Ernest Brown on at least two occasions between the trial itself and his execution, that she wrote to the Home Secretary expressing her concerns, and that she joined well over 9,000 other people in signing a petition which sought to have Brown’s sentence commuted.
The evidence of the witnesses (both those heard at the trial and those who were not heard) which appears in this novel, closely follows the contemporary records, and it is a fact that on the day prior to his execution, Brown entirely changed his story from the one which he had previously told, stating for the first time that Dorothy Morton had shot her husband and that he had merely assisted her in an attempt to conceal the deed, in order to protect Dorothy herself, and more importantly the child, Diana, whom he believed to be his daughter. His written statement was taken to London in person, by the prison governor, in a last ditch attempt to gain a reprieve, but Brown’s new version of events was dismissed as a pack of lies by the assembled legal professionals to whom it was shown.
Some readers may share my own reservations about the propriety of inviting the men whose role had been to prosecute the case against Brown, to form the tribunal which ultimately decided his fate. The notes of their deliberations suggest that they applied a less than open minded approach to this task and it is difficult to understand how they could so easily dismiss Brown’s final story, since it explained a number of discrepancies thrown up by the accounts which had been provided by Dorothy Morton and Ann Houseman. It is extremely telling that this trio of highly intelligent men elected to rely on an estimated time, when considering the evidence regarding Frederick Morton’s visit to the inn at Peckfield. It had emerged clearly at the trial that the witness Francis Cawood was not at all sure of the time that night, and his estimate made no sense at all when placed alongside the testimony of Maria Jackson, but in spite of this, Mr Paley Scott and co. decided that Cawood’s evidence disproved Ernest Brown’s story. There are none so blind as those who will not see…
After writing his new statement for the governor, Brown also wrote a last letter to Florence Morton, telling her the truth about what had happened, but the letter was suppressed, as were his final letter to his mother, and a letter to his parents from the prison chaplain. For the purposes of this novel, I have altered the wording of the letters, but maintained the spirit of them. The original correspondence survives in its entirety in the Home Office files relating to the case, which are housed in the National Archives. In line with government policy on archival material, these files were originally the subject of a 75 year closure rule, and were therefore scheduled to remain closed until 2007, however like many old criminal cases, the files were later subject to a policy of accelerated opening, and their contents were therefore freely available for many years, to anyone who obtained a reader’s ticket. In 2014 staff at the National Archives decided to withdraw the files under their Takedown and Review Policy, and at the time of writing in 2018 the files remain closed, pending a decision on whether or not their contents are suitable for the general public. It goes without saying that as an author and researcher, I deplore the implementation of a closure which is well in excess of that originally envisaged, especially given that none of the original participants in this drama are still living and that the only readers whose sensitivities are likely to be offended by the contents, are those who have a sense of justice.
Somewhat ironically, the Saxton Grange murder has been remembered – if at all – firstly for the remarkable survival of the one part of the victim’s body which contained irrefutable evidence that Frederick Morton’s death was no accident, and secondly for its supposed connection with the 1931 murder of Evelyn Foster. Anyone who researches both cases will quickly realise that the alleged connection is entirely spurious. It seems to have originated in a claim that immediately prior to his execution, Brown uttered the words, ‘Ought to burn’ or ‘Otterburn’ – a suggestion which cannot be traced any further back than an account of the Foster murder produced by the late Jonathan Goodman in 1977. There is no evidence whatsoever in the case files to support the idea that Brown said this or indeed anything like it, either on the scaffold or elsewhere, or that he had anything at all to do with the murder of Evelyn Foster, but unfortunately Goodman’s story continues to be repeated in various articles and on the internet.
In a lifetime of reading about famous cases from the 1930s, I had never encountered any suggestion that the verdict against Ernest Brown was even controversial, still less that it probably represented a miscarriage of justice, and I was therefore astonished when I finally read the contents of the case files, and discovered the hitherto unsuspected information which they contained.
The prison governor’s notes record that on the eve of his execution, when Brown finally changed his story to implicate Dorothy Morton, the governor asked Ernest Brown why he had not told the truth in the first pla
ce. Brown replied that he had not believed that he could be found guilty, partly because the evidence against him was only circumstantial, but principally because he believed that since he was an innocent man, the jury could not possibly find him guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Brown was by no means the first or last man accused of a serious crime, who imagined that the fact of his innocence would in itself provide absolute protection, and that he could therefore get away with telling lies in court. Put simply, Ernest Brown did not believe that the British justice system was capable of convicting an innocent man.
I have ended this novel by bringing together Ernest Brown’s mother – to whom, during her last visit on the eve of his execution, he had given a verbal account of what he says actually happened at Saxton Grange on that fateful day in September 1933 – and Florence Morton, whose attempts to obtain the letter which she evidently suspected that Ernest Brown had written to her, were met with a lie by the Home Office.
In fiction therefore, Florence Morton – a courageous heroine, who at a time when young, unmarried woman were expected to do as they were told, was prepared to stand out against convention in the face of a perceived injustice – gets a form of closure. Regrettably there is no evidence that this meeting between herself and the women of Ernest Brown’s family, ever took place in real life.
Diane Janes
October 2018