Gloucester
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Clements continued that he had had no conversation with Thomas Anderson, the landlord of the Suffolk Arms, about the drink that was had at election time; at least he couldn’t remember it. Anderson had told him he would give him ‘a drop of something’, but what was the cause of saying so, he could not tell. Clements was asked if he knew Anderson had a bill that wasn’t paid, and he replied that he did not know Anderson’s business.
Having finished giving his evidence, Clements was taken back to his prison cell, and the questioning of other witnesses continued. Thomas Anderson was called and was asked if he had told George Clements that his bill for the drinks given to Tory voters was over £28, and when he was paid, he would give Clements a dinner and a bottle of wine. Anderson said he did remember giving Clements a dinner, but he liked wine too much himself to give away a bottle. He denied that he had made up a bill for beer and spirits supplied during the election, or that anyone had paid him anything.
On the next day, having considered all the evidence, the commission declared that the petitioners had lost their case, and William Killigrew Wait was declared to be duly elected.
Two weeks after the election inquiry, Gloucester held its Quarter Sessions, and the case for which George Clements had been awaiting trial was heard. Alice Jones, who was a prostitute, was charged with stealing a watch and chain and £2 from a man named Hiam, while George Clements and Harriet Gregory were charged with receiving the stolen property. At the time of the incident, Clements and Gregory were living as man and wife at 25 Union Street. Alice took Hiam to the house, where he stayed the night, and the next morning he found that his watch and money were missing. He reported the theft to the police and all three miscreants were arrested. Jones admitted stealing Hiam’s property, and Clements and Gregory said they had disposed of the watch, which Gregory had sold to a Dutch sailor. Jones was sentenced to four months for the theft and Gregory to three months for receiving, but Clements, who had several previous offences, was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment and two years under police supervision upon his release.
George Clements was born in Gloucester in 1844, the son of George and Harriet Clements. His father was a chimney sweep and the family lived in the Quay Street area of the city. George Clements junior was the youngest of four children, having one sister, Mary, and two brothers, Joseph and Samuel. His first recorded brush with the law had come at the age of fifteen, when in December 1859 he was imprisoned for a couple of days for an unnamed felony. No doubt the magistrate who committed him thought that this would teach the boy a lesson, but unfortunately it had no good effect on the young Clements: in 1862 he was sentenced to two months’ hard labour for assaulting his own mother.
George Clements senior died in 1864, and it is possible that after she was widowed, Mrs Clements had made ends meet by taking in lodgers, some of them of a dubious character. In July 1866, George was once more up before the magistrates at the city petty sessions, charged with assaulting Emily Parry, who was lodging with his mother in nearby Quay Lane. A man calling himself a ‘gentleman farmer’ had gone to the house of Mrs Clements with Parry, where he paid for six shillings-worth of brandy. Clements said that Parry had put her crinoline over the farmer’s head and picked his pockets, and that he (Clements), was trying to stop her. Parry said that it was Clements who wanted to rob the farmer, and she tried to stop him, a result of which he had struck her and kicked her. Clements was fined twenty shillings, plus costs.
In November 1870, George Clements found himself in serious trouble when he was charged with the manslaughter of a woman named Sarah Ann Price. Price was a young woman from Monmouthshire, who had come to Gloucester with her illegitimate daughter, aged about seven years old. She had taken lodgings at 25 Union Street, where Clements was then living with his wife, Sarah. Union Street at that time was described in the local newspaper as ‘one of the lowest parts of the city’.
On the night of 28 October 1870, Mrs Clements, Price and another female lodger had waited up for George, and when he came home very late and found no supper prepared for him, he quarrelled with his wife, who was sitting on a sofa with Sarah Ann Price beside her. Clements picked up an ornamental shell with jagged edges and threw it at his wife, who dodged out of the way. The shell hit Price on the forehead and blood flowed from the resulting wound. Immediately contrite, Clements paid a chemist for medicine and bandages, but Price and her daughter left the house a couple of days later. She seemed none the worse for her injury at first, but about a week later she was found slumped in a doorway by the police. She was sent to a tramps’ lodging house and was attended by the Union surgeon, but she died of an abscess on the brain. George Clements was found guilty of manslaughter at the Gloucester Assizes in April 1871 and was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment.
Gloucester Prison’s gatehouse, through which George Clements passed many times. (Jill Evans)
After serving this sentence, Clements was not out of the courts for long, as in 1872 he was jailed for one month for assaulting a police officer. Later in the same year, there was evidence that he was venturing out of Gloucester to commit crimes, because he made an appearance in September at Berkeley Police Court, along with his wife, Sarah, and two girls, Lilly Cooke and Catherine Pritchard. They were charged with stealing £6 in gold from Henry Richard Bailey, a navvy, at the Sharpness Hotel. Bailey was reluctant to give evidence and failed to prove his case, so all four were discharged.
In March 1873, Clements was back before the magistrates at Gloucester, on a charge of assaulting his wife. By this time, Clements was being described in the local press as ‘an old offender’ who was ‘well-known at the court’. Sarah had refused to press charges, but from her statement and that of a police constable, it appeared that Clements had returned home in a drunken state, knocked his wife down and attempted to throttle her. Knowing that his violence was associated with his alcohol consumption, Clements now assured the magistrates that he would sign the pledge (to stay teetotal) if they would let him go. On this promise, and on finding sureties to keep the peace for three months, he was discharged.
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On 29 July 1873, Clements was tried at the Quarter Sessions on the charge of receiving stolen goods, and was imprisoned for twelve months. He was released from prison in July 1874. The two-year supervision order imposed upon him didn’t stop him from getting into trouble again, as in January 1875 he was fined for being drunk and disorderly, and in March of that same year he was jailed for six months for assaulting his wife and a police officer.
On his release from prison in September 1875, Clements managed to get himself a job as a corn porter at the docks, and announced his intention to reform. However, he was soon drinking again and by November he was, once again, in serious trouble.
On 29 November 1875, Clements sub-let his house at 25 Union Street to two prostitutes, Sarah (known as Sally) Bryant and Lilly Cooke. Clements already knew Cooke, who was one of the women he appeared with at Berkeley Police Court in 1872. The women were to pay rent of five shillings a week, on the understanding that Clements could sleep at the house when he wanted. Clements apparently told Cooke that he was willing to let her off paying her share of the rent, and on the night of 29 November he spent the night in her room.
On 1 December, Cooke and Bryant went to the Vaults Bar at the Fleece Inn in Westgate Street, and Cooke had a drink there with a young man named Lapworth. Clements came into the bar and saw Lapworth buy Cooke some potatoes. Jealousy flaring up inside him, he told her that if Lapworth slept with her that night, there would be murder in the house. On the following night, keen to make things up after their quarrel, Clements knocked on Cooke’s bedroom door, but she refused to let him in.
On the evening of Friday, 3 December, Clements accompanied the two women to the Fleece Inn. They were joined there by William Davis, who was a fishmonger, and by a German sailor. Clements, perhaps in an attempt to make Cooke jealous, treated Bryant to some grog and gave her sixpence. Bryant,
loyal to her friend, gave Cooke the sixpence in front of Clements. He then treated a girl known as ‘Brummie Emma’ to a drink. This did provoke Cooke and she had a fight with her rival. Lapworth came into the bar and Clements quarrelled with him, then swore at Cooke, kicked her, and struck her in the face. Cooke said to her friend, ‘Oh, Sally, I am afraid to go home, there’ll be murder in the house, you watch it.’ Later, Clements calmed down and put his hand round her waist and gave her half a crown.
An old postcard of The Vaults bar under the Fleece Inn, at one time known as The Monk’s Retreat. (Author’s collection)
Westgate Street in the 1900s. The Fleece Hotel is the sixth building on the left. (Author’s collection)
Cooke and Clements left the Fleece before Bryant, and went home. Just after she had got to her bedroom, Clements came to the door. She told him that she would not sleep with him because he was married, and started to put on her outdoor things, deciding it would be best to leave the house. Clements said, ‘I’ll be hanged for a better woman than my wife, that’s you, and I’ll murder you tonight.’ Cooke cried, ‘Oh George, what for?’ and Clements replied, ‘Because I love you, you cow!’
He then grabbed hold of her and pulled a knife from his pocket, which he held across her throat. She put her hand up and felt it cut her finger. Frightened for her life, she turned quickly, and Clements thrust the blade under her left shoulder, and then she heard the blade snap. She felt blood pouring from the wound and cried out, ‘Oh George, you have stabbed me!’
Clements said nothing, but pulled the broken knife out of her and left the room. However, he soon came back and, kneeling by the bed and tearing at his hair, asked for God’s forgiveness. He begged Cooke not to tell anyone what he had done, and offered to give her furniture and money if she didn’t report him.
At this point, Sarah Bryant returned to the house with William Davis. The two went upstairs and found Cooke and Clements in the bedroom. Clements offered to send for a doctor and produced seven shillings to pay for one. He and Davis took some pictures off the wall, undusted for years, and used some cobwebs from behind them to try to stay the bleeding. This didn’t work, and Lilly Cooke had to be taken to the infirmary. The police were called in, and George Clements was arrested.
On the following Monday, Clements was brought before the Gloucester magistrates. Cooke, whose real name was Mary Elizabeth Solmon, was too ill to attend, being still in the infirmary, but the evidence of William Davis and of Sarah Bryant was taken. They said that when they got home on Friday night, they found that Cooke had been stabbed in the back and was bleeding freely. They all tried to stop the bleeding and when it was proposed to send for a surgeon, Clements produced seven shillings for the fee. The surgeon didn’t come and Clements left, saying he would go to his aunt’s in Newent. Cooke asked him to kiss her, and they kissed each other several times, and he got down on his knees by the bedside and prayed that he might be forgiven.
The infirmary, in Six Engravings of Public Buildings in the City of Gloucester by A.N. Smith. (Gloucestershire Archives, D9795/2/4/5)
Clements was remanded for a week. He claimed that what Bryant and Davis had said was untrue, and when they came back after the adjournment, he would have someone to speak for him.
A week later, the inquiry continued and the proceedings started at the infirmary, where Lilly Cooke, who was still too ill to attend at Shire Hall, gave her evidence. George Clements was present and he asked her whether she hadn’t promised him that she would keep from other men if he let her have the house, but she denied this. The inquiry then continued at Shire Hall, where the policeman who arrested Clements told of how he had found a bloody knife under a chest of drawers in the house. No one appeared to speak for Clements and he was charged with stabbing Cooke, with intent to murder her, and was remanded in custody, to take his trial at the next assizes.
Once again, George Clements was taken through the gatehouse of Gloucester Prison, as he had been so many times already in his thirty-two years. He would have been very familiar with the routine as a new prisoner entering the gaol, where he was washed and examined by a doctor, and his description carefully recorded in the prison register. He was described as being five feet four and a half inches tall, with dark brown hair, blue eyes, a long face and a fresh complexion. He had scars on the left side of his forehead, on both eyebrows, and on his left cheek. There was another scar on the back of his leg, and he also had burn scars on the left side of his stomach and the back of his left arm.
In April 1876, the assizes began at Gloucester, presided over by Mr Justice Montagu Smith. The trial of George Clements took place on 15 April. Mr Griffiths prosecuted, while Clements was defended by Mr Sawyer.
Mr Griffiths opened the case and his first witness was Lilly Cooke. She recounted the tale of what happened on that Friday night in December, and told the court that she had been in the infirmary for four weeks after the stabbing, and had not yet fully recovered from the wound. The clothes she was wearing on that night and the knife used to stab her were produced.
Sarah Bryant and William Davis then gave their evidence. They were followed by Mr Sampson, the house surgeon at the infirmary, who said Lilly Cooke had a clean-cut wound, about three-quarters of an inch in length and just over an inch in depth. The wound was midway between the centre of the back and the right shoulder blade, and penetrated near the serous membrane of the right lung. It was a dangerous wound and must have been caused by great violence.
Sketch of Pentonville Prison’s gateway, from The Criminal Prisons of London by Mayhew and Binney, 1862. (Author’s collection)
Mr Sawyer, for the defence, did not wish to cross-examine the witnesses. He said he did not deny that the prisoner, Clements, had inflicted the wound, and the only question for the jury was what offence he should be found guilty of. He disputed the idea that Clements had intended to murder the girl, because if he had wished to do so, he had ample opportunity. His conduct afterwards showed that he had no such intention. Because of this, Mr Sawyer submitted that the jury would be justified in finding the prisoner guilty of unlawful wounding.
Sketch of a cell in Pentonville Prison, from The Criminal Prisons of London by Mayhew and Binney, 1862. (Author’s collection)
The judge directed the jury to consider whether there was anything in the case which would warrant them in returning a verdict for a lesser offence than that of unlawfully wounding. In reference to the words used by the prisoner before the wound was inflicted, he argued that when a man was in drink he might use certain expressions which the jury could consider to be less significant than they would otherwise have been. In this case, there was no evidence that the prisoner was drunk, although he had been drinking. In considering whether the wound was inflicted with intent to murder or to inflict grievous bodily harm, they must look at the weapon used, at the part of the body which was attacked and at the consequences of the act. The jury retired before returning a verdict of guilty of wounding with intent to murder.
Sketch of Pentonville Prison in the Illustrated London News, 7 January 1843. (Author’s collection)
In passing sentence, the judge said he thoroughly concurred with the verdict. Addressing Clements, he said he had before him a very sad record of his life. He then read out the long list of his previous convictions. It was clear that imprisonment did him no good, that he did society no good, and under the circumstances it was his duty to pass upon him a very severe sentence. Clements was lucky that the woman who was the subject of his attack had survived, otherwise he would have been facing a death sentence. As it was, he sentenced Clements to twenty years’ penal servitude.
George Clements was taken back to Gloucester Prison, but soon afterwards he was removed to Pentonville Prison. At that notoriously harsh prison, he would spend the first nine months of his sentence in solitary confinement (as all prisoners at Pentonville were), only leaving his cell for exercise and to attend the prison chapel.
On 13 April 1882, the name of Walter Partridge was ent
ered in the admissions register of the County Lunatic Asylum in Horton Road, Wotton. Partridge, who was in his fifties, came from the village of Sheepscombe, near Stroud. He was a carpenter by trade, who had also been the clerk of the parish church for a number of years, and not long before he entered the asylum, he had been running the village post office with his wife. About two months after he was admitted, on Monday, 12 June 1882, Partridge died. He had not been in good physical health and it was assumed that he had died of natural causes. However, when Dr Thomas, the asylum’s assistant medical officer briefly examined the body before it was sent to the mortuary, he noticed that several of Partridge’s ribs appeared to be broken.
On 14 June, an inquest was opened into the sudden death of Walter Partridge. Mr Toller, the medical superintendent of the asylum, was the first to give evidence. He said Partridge had been diagnosed as suffering from ‘general paralysis of the insane’ – a term which in the nineteenth century was applied to many patients suffering from dementia, seizures, delusions and other symptoms. He was, said Toller, exceedingly restless and a very troublesome patient.