East End Murders

by Neil Storey

  The trial of the Wainwright brothers at the Central Criminal Court opened on 22 November before Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice of England. Sir John ‘Sleepy Jack’ Holker, the Attorney General, led the prosecution with Mr Harry Poland. The defence for Henry Wainwright was led by Mr Edward Besley with Mr Douglas Strait and Mr C.F. Gill. Counsel for Thomas Wainwright was conducted by Mr Moody.

  In the dock at Southwark Police Court, Alice Day implores Henry Wainwright to clear her name.

  Sketched from life, Henry (left) and Thomas Wainwright after a week of their trial at the Central Criminal Court.

  Despite the Chief Justice, in his opening remarks, speaking of ‘the magnitude and importance of this great trial’, the truth was that despite the circumstances of murder being both sensational and remarkable, the case was not – the evidence was so clear and unequivocal, the proof of his guilt overwhelming, but still the most senior counsel laboured their speeches, the Attorney General devoting a whole day to his closing speech and the Chief Justice another day for his summing up. The entire trial stretched over nine long days.

  The trial finally concluded on 1 December. The jury retired to consider their verdict at 3.45 p.m. After an absence of nearly an hour the jury returned a unanimous verdict of ‘guilty’ against Henry Wainwright. Thomas Wainwright was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact and sentenced to seven years penal servitude. Many who studied the case were to recall Thomas had a near miss: had it not been for the eloquence of his defence he would have undoubtedly faced the same fate as his brother.

  Before sentence was passed, Henry Wainwright was asked if he had anything to say. He attempted to enter into a speech but was brought to the point by the Lord Chief Justice. Wainwright acquiesced, saying:

  Then I will imply say that, standing as I now do upon the brink of eternity, and in the presence of that God before whom I shall shortly appear, I swear that I am not the murderer of the remains found in my possession. I swear also that I have not buried these remains, and that I did not exhume or mutilate them as proved before you by witnesses. I have been guilty of great immorality. I have been guilty of many indiscretions, but as for the crime of which I have been brought in guilty I leave this dock with a calm and quiet conscience.

  Once sentences were passed on the brothers and they were taken down, the Lord Chief Justice exercised the power vested in him to order a reward, the sum of £30, to be granted to Stokes ‘for his conduct and energy… and his perseverance in following up the cab in which those remains were being conveyed [that] in reality led to the discovery of this crime and the conviction of the offender concerned in it.’

  Petitions were made for the sentence to be commuted and attempts were made to publicly discredit a witness. The Times of Tuesday 21 December reported ‘a rumour’ that a document written by Henry Wainwright was in the possession of the Home Secretary, the contents of which related:

  That being in pecuniary embarrassment, he grew weary of the importunities of Harriet Lane and the constant drain upon his purse. Harriet Lane had threatened that unless he gave her more money she would expose him to the world as the father of her children, which to a man in his social position meant ruin and degradation. He mentioned these circumstances to his brother Thomas who said he was confident that for a consideration of £20 some man could be got to marry her and take her away.

  ‘He donned the black cap’ – Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice of England, pronounces the death sentence on Henry Wainwright.

  ‘Wake up Wainwright – you have an appointment to keep!’ Henry Wainwright in the condemned cell at Newgate, just hours before his execution.

  Wainwright went on to claim he paid his brother the money, but Thomas ‘went to Henry at 84 Whitechapel Road and said he had got rid of her, and on being asked how, replied that he had shot her.’ Henry exclaimed, ‘Good God, Tom, what have you done?’ He threatened to inform the police, to which Thomas replied if he did so, ‘he would swear Henry did it.’ She was Henry’s paramour and she was laying on his premises, so, in the days before forensics or use of fingerprints in detection, what chance would he have had? So he complied. Thomas was also said to have made a similar statement – except this time it was he who was forced by Henry, the killer, to comply for fear of implication.

  On Tuesday 21 December 1875 Henry Wainwright was executed at Newgate Prison by public executioner William Marwood. Wainwright was led out across the yard to the execution shed as the nearby clock of St Sepulchre chimed 8 a.m. Wainwright had clearly dressed with ‘scrupulous care’, his bearing as he walked demonstrating ‘conspicuous fortitude.’ A friend of H.B. Irving was present and described the scene to him as:

  absolutely Hogarthian and horrible… the cold December morning, the waning moon, the rope dangling to and fro in the shed awaiting its victim, a gaslight flaring noisily, the well-dressed crowd of privileged visitors (about sixty in number) come to see the show, the Sheriff’s footmen, who had some of them obviously fortified their spirits for the occasion; the whole scene seemed ghastly and sickening in the last degree.

  Wainwright had been given a special dispensation to smoke a last cigar, which he discarded as he approached the gallows. Looking over his shoulder with a glance of infinite scorn, and then, with a contemptuous movement of his head, he called to those assembled to witness the execution, ‘Come to see a man die, have you, you curs!’ Speaking no more Wainwright went to his doom with this curse upon his lips. Another who was present noted:

  After the white cap had been drawn over his face and while the noose was being adjusted, the heaving of deep emotion was distinctly visible through the folds of the cap. The necessary preparations were speedily made by the executioner, and all things being in readiness, the drop fell with an awful shock echoing for a moment or two all over the prison yard… Judging from the tension of the rope for some considerable interval after the bolt had been drawn the prisoner must have ‘died hard’, as the saying goes.

  3

  TO KILL AN ANGEL

  Israel Lipski, 1887

  In the year 1887 Batty Street was very much like any other in this predominantly Jewish area of St George’s-in-the-East. Although it could not claim to be a street of smart identical terraced houses, contemporary illustrations show a variety of houses of varying heights and typical nineteenth-century construction, quite probably ‘jerry built’ with tenement occupation in mind, evenly running along the length of the street. Times were hard in that area and it has to be observed with the benefit of hindsight that the area was on the way down – indeed the street is denoted as ‘poor’ in Booth’s survey of 1891.

  The problems were further compounded as more and more Jews fled the troubles of Eastern Europe. In Outcast London, G.S. Jones states that between 1880 and 1886, 20,000 Jews came to the East End of London. As a result, the tenements in this area rapidly became overcrowded, deprived and unsanitary. In a survey from 1871 only two people were recorded as occupying the three-storey house at 16 Batty Street; by 1887 fifteen people were crammed into the property, among them Isaac and Miriam Angel (22) from Warsaw, who occupied two rooms on the first floor. They had been married for twelve months. Above them on the top floor were two rooms, one of which was occupied by Israel Lipski (22), who had resided at 16 Batty Street for two years. Born a Polish Jew in Warsaw in 1865 named Israel Lobulsk, he changed his name to Lipski shortly after his arrival in London in 1885 and was soon working as an umbrella stick maker and was engaged to his employer’s sister-in-law, Kate Lyons. Although the engagement had been broken for some while previously, by June 1887 the betrothal was renewed, Lipski had begun to learn English and had a few savings put away which, after being urged to do so by his future mother-in-law, he had recently drawn out from the bank to set himself up in his own business as a walking stick maker.

  On the morning of Tuesday 28 June 1887, Isaac Angel got up early and left for his work as a boot riveter at St George Street, Spitalfields shortly after 6 a.m., leaving h
is wife, who was six months pregnant, in bed. Miriam was in the habit of visiting her mother-in-law, Mrs Dinah Angel, between 8.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. each day for breakfast. When she did not arrive Mrs Angel went round to 16 Batty Street to see if anything was wrong, arriving at about 11 a.m. She went directly up to Miriam’s room and knocked on the door, but got no response: it appeared to be locked from the inside. Now very concerned, she called down to the landlady, who rushed upstairs with another resident, Mrs Levy. They went up the stairs that led to the attic and, peering through a small side window covered by a muslin curtain, they saw Miriam lying on the bed as if in a faint. The women then rushed to the door, forced it open and ran over to the bed where Miriam lay on her side, her hands behind her and half covered by the bedclothes, her night attire pushed up and ‘her person exposed.’

  A contemporary illustration of Israel Lipski.

  To their horror, the women saw a yellow frothy substance coming from Miriam’s mouth and what appeared to be corrosive burns about her head, face, neck and breast. The landlady immediately ran for Dr John Kay, whose surgery was around the corner at 100 Commercial Road. On her way she encountered Dr Kay’s assistant, Mr William Piper, and summoned him to the scene. In the meantime Harris Dywein, a general dealer, who knew the Angels, was passing 16 Batty Street at 11.30 a.m. when he heard screams and cries coming from within the house and went to inquire the cause. He saw Miriam on the bed and was there when Mr Piper arrived.

  Piper saw that Miriam Angel was dead and recognised the burns about her face as those caused by a corrosive acid. Suspecting foul play, he immediately ushered those present on to the landing and locked the room from the outside. Dr Kay was then urgently summoned. About ten minutes later Dr Kay arrived and the room was again entered. He noted the burns on Miriam’s face and hands and agreed with Piper that they were indeed caused by some corrosive substance, probably nitric acid. A search of the room was begun to find the bottle that it had been contained in. It was discovered at the foot of the bed, still containing some of the corrosive liquid, and marked with an almost illegible old label: ‘Camphorated Oil: Bell & Co. Chemists, Commercial Road.’ Just as the bottle was found, Harris Dywein, who had been feeling under the bed for the lost bottle, leapt back with shock – he had touched a man’s hand! Dr Kay pulled the bed from the wall, jumped on it, and, removing a pillow, exclaimed, ‘Why, it is a man!’ He sent Dywein for the police.

  Police officers remove the semi-conscious Lipski from under Miriam Angel’s bed.

  Dywein went to the window and summoned a passing constable, PC Arthur Sack, who was closely followed by PC Alfred Inwood. The man, who was discovered lying on his back, was then brought out from under the bed – it was Israel Lipski, in what appeared to be an unconscious state; his mouth showed evidence of acid burns and his clothes were much burnt from the effects of the same. Dr Kay felt his pulse and exclaimed, ‘He is alive.’ The doctor then put his finger on Lipski’s cornea to see if he was conscious. There was no reaction, so the doctor slapped his face and Lipski opened his eyes.

  News soon got out that ‘something had happened’ and a crowd had gathered in front of 16 Batty Street and around Dr Kay’s surgery, anxious to find out what was going on. The police were also soon on the scene and found Lipski’s hat on the foot of the bed and his coat under the bed. Lipski himself was extracted from his hide under the bed by the two policemen, as Dr Kay recalled: ‘One each side of him – took hold of his arm and pulled him out, the bed was pulled round and he was taken round the end, pulled along the bare floorboards.’ He was removed from the house under police escort, through the milling crowd, first to Kay’s surgery for further treatment, then to the police station. Still believed to be in a precarious position, he was then removed to the London Hospital and placed under a police guard.

  News soon spread of the murder and a crowd gathered in front of No. 16 Batty Street.

  Lipski was visited in the hospital by his fiancée, Kate Lyons. She stayed with him for over an hour and when exiting told the press she believed he was innocent and that he was another victim rather than the murderer. By evening, Inspector David Final and Detective Sergeant William Thicke (known to many on both sides of the law as ‘Johnny Upright’) arrived at Lipski’s bedside with an interpreter. He gave the following statement of what had occurred:

  At 7 o’clock in the morning a man who had worked for me asked me to give him some work. I told him to wait, that I would buy a vice for him, so that I could give him some work. I went to purchase a vice, but when I got to the shop it was too soon. As I was going along I met another workman whom I knew at the corner of Backchurch Lane. I went back to the shopkeeper, who wanted 4s for the vice, I offered 3s. He said he would not take it. I returned to Batty Street and got into the passage. I then saw the man I had seen in Backchurch Lane. He said, ‘Will you give me work or not?’ I said, ‘Come to the workshop. I am going to breakfast; then I will give you work.’ I told my landlady to make some coffee and sent the man to fetch some brandy. I afterwards went upstairs to the first floor. I there saw both these men and saw them open a box. They took hold of me by the throat, threw me down to the ground; there on the ground opened my mouth and poured some poison into it. They said, ‘That is the brandy.’ They got my hands behind me and asked if I had got any money. I said, ‘I have got no more than the sovereign, which I gave you to get the brandy.’ They then asked, ‘Where is your gold chain?’ I said, ‘It is in pawn.’ They said, ‘If you do not give it you will be dead as the woman.’ They put a piece of wood in my mouth. I struggled, and they then put their knees on me against my throat. One of them said to the other, ‘Don’t you think he is quite dead yet?’ The reply was, ‘Yes, he don’t want any more.’ They then threw me under the bed and I lay there as if dead. One of the men I have known by the name of Simon.

  Dr Kay’s surgery on the corner of Commercial Road and Batty Street.

  The inquest into the death of Miriam Angel opened on the evening of Wednesday 29 June 1887 – while Lipski was still in hospital – at the Vestry Hall, Cable Street, with Mr Wynne Baxter, Coroner for the County of Middlesex (Eastern District), presiding. Miriam’s body had been removed to St George’s mortuary, where Dr Kay had performed the post-mortem examination the previous afternoon. He presented his findings at the inquest. Dr Kay had noted ‘on the right eye and temple there were marks of violent blows. There were no other external marks except those of corrosive poison. On removing the scalp there was evidence of a tremendous blow on the right temple.’ The examination also revealed Mrs Angel must have been on her back when the acid was administered. ‘Both sides of the heart being empty indicated the cause of death was suffocation from the swallowing of nitric acid.’ Dr Kay added, ‘there was something in the vagina which looked like semen, but I could not say for certain if it is semen without a microscopical examination.’ Earlier, when Isaac Angel was asked via the interpreter if he had recently had intercourse with his wife, a question which presented the translator with considerable problems phrasing it in Yiddish, Mr Angel replied that he had not.

  The inquest was adjourned at the request of the coroner to allow Dr Kay to perform further tests, and opened again on Friday 1 July. Charles Moore of 96 Backchurch Lane, Whitechapel, the manager of an oilman’s shop, gave evidence he sold nitric acid ‘to a man whom he thought he could identify with the man Lipski now lying in the London Hospital.’ Dr Kay was recalled and presented his findings, which reveal the woeful inadequacies of forensic tests available to medical examiners in the late 1880s:

  After the last sitting of the inquest I extracted from the vagina of the deceased some matter I found there. I have put it under the microscope. There are no spermatozoa. Had there been any I could have proved it was semen. It might be semen. I agree with the remark of a text book that the semen even of a healthy young man varies much and is scarcely ever twice alike, so that the absence of spermatozoa is no proof that the matter is not semen. There is no other test. I produce a glass bottle wit
h some of the matter taken from the vagina, sealed and marked ‘A’.

  Dr Kay then related his notes and impressions from the crime scene:

  When I first saw the body of the deceased it was not exposed. The lower part of the body was covered with a feather-bed, and on the upper part there was a shirt, which was unbuttoned, but it did not expose her breasts. On turning the bed down to see if any violence had been offered to her, the legs, thighs, and the whole of her genitals, and the lower part of the abdomen were exposed, and not covered by her chemise. Her thighs were wide apart.

  Although the East London Observer contained the more graphic accounts of Dr Kay’s testimony, most of the national newspapers, such as The Times, ever mindful of the sensitivities of their readership, simply recorded Dr Kay’s statement as, ‘The condition of the deceased caused him to think that an assault had been committed upon her.’ Lipski’s hospital bed statement was then read out.

  Over the two days of the inquest questions were also raised about the relationship between Miriam Angel and Israel Lipski, but none of those asked could say they had even seen Mrs Angel exchange pleasantries with the man.

  Lipski was not called as a witness; the telling statement of Inspector Final summed the police view of him: ‘Lipski is in custody and would not be produced as a witness if the inquest were adjourned.’ The inquest was not adjourned and the jury returned a verdict of ‘wilful murder’ against Lipski, who was committed to trial on a coroner’s warrant.