Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Southampton

by John J Eddleston

  Stephen Dowding was the licensee of the Compass Inn and he testified that Augustus had come into his pub on the evening of Sunday, 22 June 22. He was sober when he left at 8.45pm. The Penny cottage was some one and a half miles from the Compass. This was confirmed by Emily Dowding, Stephen’s wife. She was also able to add that when Augustus left, he took with him a quart of beer in a bottle.

  On the way back to his cottage, Augustus had been met by William Barnes, a bricklayer. It was then around 9.00pm on the Sunday and Augustus was some eighty yards from his home. He appeared to be in a happy mood and bade Barnes a cheery ‘Goodnight.’ Barnes too confirmed that Augustus appeared to be sober.

  Not long after this meeting, Herbert William Hunt walked past the Penny cottage on the way to his own home which was the next house along the lane. He reported that as he passed he heard loud talking coming from inside the Penny home but he would not say that it was an argument.

  Police sergeant Ernest Thomas Long had taken charge of the shotgun once it had been recovered from a stream, close to where Augustus had been found underneath the hedge. The normal pull of such a weapon would be from five to seven pounds but he had tested the gun used to kill Matilda and found that it required a pull of thirteen pounds. Sergeant Long had also searched the cottage and reported that he had found a bag containing six cartridges, in the kitchen. They were a mixed bunch of cartridges but two were similar to the spent one found in the gun.

  Medical evidence was given by the police surgeon, Dr Barrington White. He had first examined Matilda’s body in situ and found her head much damaged by the shotgun blast. Blood and brains were scattered on three sides of the room and the ceiling and part of Matilda’s cranial bone lay on the floor near the bed. He had made his initial examination at 9.10am on Monday 23 June and estimated time of death at between ten and twelve hours earlier.

  Dr White was also able to say that the gun must have been fired from close range and by someone in a standing position, aiming the weapon downwards. The suggestion was that Matilda was lying down, with her back to the door which led to the other bedrooms and the gun had been fired at her from near that doorway. Matilda’s hair was singed and the gun would have been between one and a half and two and a half feet from her head when it was fired.

  Confirmation from the Home Secretary’s Office that no grounds could be found for commuting Penny’s death sentence.

  The reply to the Home Office, confirming that Penny had now been told that the death sentence would be carried out.

  After every death sentence is carried out, an inquest must be held. This is the standard report on an executed prisoner, showing that the sentence had been carried out on Augustus John Penny.

  The verdict was, in reality, a foregone conclusion. There could be no denying that Augustus had shot his mother dead and was therefore guilty of murder but the jury still took twenty five minutes to return their verdict. When the verdict did come, the jury added a recommendation to mercy on account of the treatment Augustus had received from his mother during his life.

  It did nothing to save the life of Augustus Penny and less than three weeks later, on Wednesday, 26 November 1913, he was hanged at Winchester by John Ellis and Albert Lumb. As for the shotgun used to kill Matilda Penny, local legend has it that it later passed into the hands of a farmer, Mr Evelyn Light, who used it for years afterwards – to shoot rabbits!

  Chapter 6

  The Southampton Garage Murder William Henry Podmore 1930

  Vivian Messiter had led a most interesting life. Born on 1 September 1871 in Wincanton, he had been educated at Trent College, near Nottingham. His ambition was to enter the field of medicine and for that reason he enrolled at Edinburgh University in 1889. He hadn’t been there very long, however, before he realised that becoming a doctor wasn’t for him after all. He dropped out and began to travel.

  Messiter’s first port of call was Mexico. From there he travelled to Denver where, in 1897, he married Sarah Eleanor Culley. She gave birth to a daughter in 1899 but Vivian and Sarah separated in 1905 and he moved on to New York. Tragically, the daughter would be killed in a car crash in the early 1920s.

  In the early part of the twentieth century, Messiter could see the dark clouds of war looming over Europe and decided that he wished to serve the country of his birth. He returned to England before 1914 and, on 30 August 1915, enlisted in the 17th Service Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers as a 2nd Lieutenant. On 18 May 1916, Messiter was promoted to Lieutenant and, almost exactly a year later, on 1 May 1917, reached the rank of Captain. That was the rank he still held at the end of the war when Messiter was discharged for medical reasons. He had been wounded and would, for the rest of his life, walk with a limp.

  Once hostilities were at an end, Messiter joined Vickers at Enfield as an engineer, but soon he returned to New York where he met Mrs Mary Nevin. They came back to England together in July 1928 and lived as man and wife at 51 Ebury Street, London. The relationship didn’t last and even though they remained on good terms, Mrs Nevin returned to New York soon afterwards. Messiter was now at a loose end. He needed some new position to occupy his mind. It was with some excitement that, on 10 September 1928, he found himself appointed sales manager for the Wolf’s Head Oil Company.

  The duties were simple enough. Wolf’s Head was an American oil company and they wished to break into the British market, starting in the south of England. Messiter was given a float of £100 to finance the set-up of a sales force and was told to draw £10 per week for himself as a salary. A regional office, which was really little more than an old garage to be used as a depot for storage, was rented at 42 Grove Street, Southampton, and Messiter moved to that city at the end of September, taking lodgings with Alva and Gertrude Parrott at 3 Carlton Road.

  Messiter threw himself into his work, placing a total of six advertisements in the Southern Daily Echo, seeking people who wished to work as agents on commission. He had a number of replies and did take on a few applicants. Everything seemed to be going well. The first delivery of oil to the depot in Grove Street was made, a few orders came in and were duly filled but then, on Tuesday 30 October 1928, Vivian Messiter simply disappeared.

  One thing that could be said about Vivian Messiter was that he was a creature of habit. He left his lodgings at the same time every day. He would break for lunch at the same time. He returned home at the same time every evening, and was certainly not the type of man to leave without any explanation. Besides, none of his belongings had been removed from his lodgings. Mr Parrott was growing rather concerned and since he was an ex-policeman, he was not about to let the matter drop.

  Alva Sidney Havergill Parrott went to the office at Grove Street but the place was securely locked and there was no sign of life. By 1 November, there had still been no sign of Messiter so Mr Parrott telephoned the police station at Bargate and reported him as a missing person. The local police showed little interest in the matter and made no real efforts to discover what might have happened. After all, Messiter had a history of travel and it was assumed that he had simply moved on yet again.

  A page of the expenses book kept by Vivian Messiter and in his own hand. Notice that four gallons of ‘gas’ or petrol, cost just 5s 3d – approximately 26p!

  Two days later, on 3 November, Mr Parrott wrote to the head office of the Wolf’s Head Company at 107 Old Broad Street, London and reported Messiter’s disappearance to them. Further, he went on to say that since he had to be in London on business on 5 November, he would like to meet an officer of the company and discuss the matter further.

  That meeting did indeed take place, at Waterloo station, and Mr Parrott repeated his concerns. The company also seemed to take little interest, not even being too concerned that this might be costing them business. In fact, the only sign of interest displayed by the company was to send a letter to Mr Parrott, which he received on 7 November, asking for any communications he might receive for Mr Messiter be forwarded on to them in London.

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sp; Not one to be dissuaded, on 8 November, Mr Parrott took his concerns to the St Mary’s police station in Southampton, where he spoke to Chief Inspector Parker and asked if he would send an officer to the depot. Parker agreed and later that day, at around 8.00pm, Mr Parrott, Sergeant Hayward and a uniformed constable went to Grove Street. A cursory examination of the premises was made and at one stage, a glance through one of the windows revealed that the car Messiter had been supplied with, a maroon Morris Oxford, registration BW 9101, was parked inside the garage.

  On 9 November, Mr Parrott wrote to the Wolf’s Head Company again to say that the car they had given Messiter was secure inside the garage. This, finally, spurred them into some sort of action. Mr Greenall, one of the directors, visited New Scotland Yard and added his concerns to those of Mr Parrott. He was told to talk to the police in Southampton but at least photographs of the missing man, together with a full description, appeared in the Police Gazette on 5 December.

  The New Year dawned and the Wolf’s Head company finally decided that someone else had to take over from Messiter. On 8 January 1929, they appointed a new sales manager, Henry Obadiah Stanley Passmore, who lived at Northlands Road, Southampton. Two days later, on Thursday, 10 January, Mr Passmore and Mr Bailey, a junior clerk from Jenkins and Sons, a firm of solicitors, visited the depot at 42 Grove Street.

  The two men forced the lock and, finally, Passmore gained entrance to the garage. The first thing that Passmore examined was the car itself. Inside he found a torch and a pair of gloves and on the back seat, some drums of oil with an overcoat thrown over them. Looking further around the garage, Passmore saw that there were boxes stacked about the place, containing cans of oil. Some of these stacks formed a sort of corridor along the back wall and it was there that Henry Passmore found a body, which appeared to bear a gun-shot wound to the head. The mystery of the disappearance of Vivian Messiter had been solved.

  The first police officer on the scene was Constable Horace Robert George Hellyer. He arrived at 11.15am, to be followed, ten minutes later by Chief Inspector William Henry Parker. The two policemen made a careful inspection of the premises. Messiter’s body lay on its back, his left arm lying across his chest, his right arm bent vertically from the elbow. He was fully dressed in a brown overall and wore kid gloves on both hands. His legs were apart, with his feet pointing outwards.

  Messiter’s head was in an advanced state of decomposition and it appeared that rats had attacked his eyes, the left side of his face, his mouth, the right side of his chin, both ears and his nose. There was a gaping wound around one eye socket. This looked like a shooting, but it would be for a post-mortem to determine the exact cause of death.

  It was clear that the local force would require some assistance in the investigation so later that same day, at 6.45pm, a telegram was despatched to Scotland Yard, by Mr McCormac, the Chief Constable of Southampton, asking for assistance. The following day, Detective Chief Inspector Prothero and Detective Sergeant Young arrived in Southampton, from London.

  The post-mortem on the dead man was conducted by Dr George Robert Seager Thomas, on the same day that the body was found: 10 January 1929. He noted that the parts of the body that had been covered, were quite well preserved but those exposed to the elements had deteriorated substantially. Dr Thomas was, however, able to refute the initial belief that Vivian Messiter had been shot. He reported that one or more blows from a heavy, blunt instrument, had been the cause of death.

  Up to this point, the efforts of the Southampton police had not been of the highest quality. They had taken little real interest in the original disappearance of Mr Messiter and had only made somewhat cursory examinations of the premises before the body was discovered. Now, this level of inefficiency seemed to continue. It was not until 12 January that Acting Sergeant Turner found a small gold swivel from a watch. It seemed that the killer, whoever he was, had torn Messiter’s watch from his person, causing the swivel to fracture and come away.

  The telegram sent from the Southampton police to Scotland Yard, asking for assistance.

  More serious, perhaps, was the fact that it was not until 13 January that Detective Constable William Barber found a hammer lying between two oil drums close to the wall. The head of the hammer was resting on the ground with the handle pointing upwards. The head and shaft of the hammer bore bloodstains and there were what appeared to be hairs adhering to it; one on the head and one on the wood of the handle. This hammer would eventually be shown to be the murder weapon.

  On that same day, 13 January, Acting Sergeant Turner found a piece of paper lying in some sawdust on the floor. The paper was a memorandum relating to a shipment of 36 gallons of oil but of more significance was what was written on the back. This was a receipt for ten shillings rent, signed by someone named John Robert Horne and showed that it had been received from someone named Mr Thomas.

  Further evidence relating to this Mr Thomas was discovered the following day, 14 January, again by Acting Sergeant Turner. This item was a screwed up piece of paper, found in a storeroom. When unfolded it was seen that this was a short letter which read: ‘Mr W.F. Thomas. I shall be at 42 Grove St at 10am but not noon.’ and was signed ‘V. Messiter’.

  The two officers from Scotland Yard had, by now, also discovered other items of interest. An order book had been found in the garage but some pages appeared to have been torn out. In addition, carbon sheets in the back of that same book, bore impressions of various orders for oil which appeared to be fictitious. One, for example, related to an order from a company named Cromer and Barrett of 25 Bold Street, Southampton. There was no such company trading anywhere within the Southampton area and Bold Street itself, did not exist.

  A search of Messiter’s lodgings had also revealed various letters replying to his advertisements for agents to sell the oil. One of these was from a W F Thomas and gave the address of 5 Cranberry Avenue. However, when officers checked out that address, they discovered that Mr Thomas had left Southampton on 3 November 1928.

  The note, found crumpled at the murder scene, which gave police officer’s investigating Messiter’s murder, the name W F Thomas.

  A legitimate receipt found in one of Messiter’s record books at the storeroom. Note the indentations on the page, from the one above, which had been torn out of the book.

  This was a most curious discovery. It was now believed that Vivian Messiter had, in all probability, been killed on the same day that he was last seen at his lodgings: Tuesday, 30 October 1928. Mr Thomas, must have been one of his agents since a receipt belonging to him had been found at the garage and this same Thomas had left Southampton on Saturday, 3 November, just five days later. A description of Thomas was taken and circulated widely to police stations, along with that of a blonde-haired woman who had lived with him and was described as his wife.

  On 15 January 1929, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the Home Office pathologist, travelled down to Southampton and, with Dr George Thomas, performed a second post-mortem on Messiter. His subsequent report stated that three separate blows had been rained down upon Messiter’s head and it was most likely that the first had been struck from behind whilst Messiter was bending down. Two further blows from the hammer had then been given resulting in massive fractures of the skull. One of the blows had landed in the region of the left eyebrow, causing a gaping hole, which subsequently had been widened by the action of rats. It was this wound which had originally looked as if it might have been caused by a bullet.

  The letter sent by ‘W F Thomas’ to Mr Mitchell about the job he had been offered. Note that the letter carries the correct Southampton address used by Podmore.

  The description of W F Thomas brought information from two other police forces. Officers at Salisbury stated that a man fitting that description, and using the name Thomas, had been suspected of stealing some wage packets from his employer at Downton, near Salisbury. In addition, Manchester police reported that this man was also wanted for the theft of a car in their area. There, however, h
e had been using the name Podmore and travelling with one Lily Hambleton whose home address was 32 Buxton Street, Hanley. A search of police records showed that William Henry Podmore had a long criminal record with a number of convictions in three different names; Podmore, Stubbs and Nicholls. The police now knew precisely who they were looking for.

  The description of Podmore was now given out to the gentlemen of the press. It read: ‘Police are anxious to trace the whereabouts of a man giving the name of William Frank Thomas. Age about 32, height 5 feet 4 or 5 inches, complexion pale, hair dark, clean shaven, has a distinctive scar about one inch in length on his temple.’

  ‘Lived at 5 Cranberry Ave, Southampton, from about the 20th October to 3rd November, 1928, with a woman age about 30, height about 5 feet 3 inches, complexion pale, hair golden, believed to be dyed.’

  ‘These persons went to reside at Downton, Wiltshire on or about 3 November 1928, leaving there on 22 December during which time Thomas was employed at Mitchells Saw Mills, Lode Hill, Downton.’