by James Moore
The White Hart Hotel in Moretonhampstead, Devon, where Jonathan May supped before his murder. (Courtesy of Julia Wherrell)
About an hour and a half later Nicholas Taverner and his family, who had left Moretonhampstead on foot, found a horse without its rider. Taverner took the horse back to town where he discovered that it belonged to May. He then went back off down the Exeter road to search for him. He found May lying on his back near a spot called Jacob’s Well. When Taverner lifted May’s head ‘blood came bubbling out of his nose and mouth’. It didn’t look like the man had been dragged along the road as he might have if the horse had bolted. Suspiciously, his pockets had been turned out too. Taverner cried out ‘Murder!’ and then went back to Moretonhampstead to alert a doctor and fetch a cart to carry May back. He took the farmer to the White Hart where he was placed in a bed. Two doctors attended May, who had a wound over his left eye, three more on the upper part of the head, two on the back of the head and another by his left ear. Despite attempts to revive him, May never regained consciousness and died at 9 p.m. on the Friday.
A post-mortem found that May had suffered a fractured skull, and the two doctors agreed that the head injuries which killed him were unlikely to have been caused by a fall. They were consistent with being assaulted with a stick or having been kicked. Indeed, that morning a bloodied stick was found in a hedge near the spot where May had been found. Though he had clearly been the victim of a robbery, little was missing from May’s body apart from his watch and also a pocket book, which was later retrieved from a field. In the same field the tracks of two people were also found leading away from the scene. A coroner’s inquest held at The White Hart recorded a verdict of wilful murder.
Suspicion was soon directed towards a local labourer called George Avery, a man who had been sacked by May and had turned to wrestling to earn money. He had narrowly escaped a different murder charge, but had been convicted of an assault. Avery was promptly arrested along with his lover, Elizabeth Harris, and several others who were thought to be accomplices. However, although Avery was definitely at the fair on the night of the murder, he was released when witnesses placed him in his lodgings at the time the killing had occurred. The others were released too.
The following spring a man who went by the names of both Thomas Oliver and Thomas Infield, as well as the nickname Buckingham Joe, was in Dorchester Gaol awaiting trial for another robbery when he boasted about ‘the job’ he had done on a Devonshire farmer, along with another man whom he referred to as ‘Turpin’. The prison chaplain came to hear of this admission and, knowing of the May case, passed on the information to the authorities. May’s watch was subsequently found at Buckingham Joe’s lodgings.
There was a well-known young ruffian in the south east called Edmund Galley who happened to go by the nickname of Turpin. He was known to cause trouble at fairs. Galley was soon picked up for vagrancy and then accused of May’s murder too, effectively on the basis of his nickname. He denied ever having been in Devon, adding that he had been at the races in Reigate, Surrey, on the day May was murdered, though he later claimed to have been at a fair in Dartford in Kent.
A plan of Moretonhampstead used in the trial, which now hangs on a wall inside the White Hart. (Courtesy of Julia Wherrell)
The trial of Buckingham Joe and Edmund Galley took place in Exeter on 28 July 1836. A raft of witnesses were brought forward to say that they recognised the pair as having been at the fair in Moretonhampstead and acting suspiciously before and after the murder, but the accounts were conflicting. The case hinged around the testimony of Elizabeth Harris, Avery’s former lover. She testified that she had seen the two men now in the dock discussing robbing farmers in Moretonhampstead during the fair. Astonishingly she then claimed to have seen them commit the actual murder too. They had, she said, pulled May off his horse and then attacked him with a stick and kicked him. Harris said she had not told this story before because she was scared of retribution. Now she was in gaol for another offence and waiting to be transported. It should be noted that in giving her evidence she hoped to get a pardon. George Avery was brought before the court to say that Harris had actually been in bed with him at around the time of the murder. Then, another witness stated that Galley was not the man she had seen with Oliver and an accomplice at the Lamb Inn on the road to Exeter. Confusingly, another put Galley in the White Hart playing pub games during the fair. Galley, who had no defence counsel during the trial, continued vehemently to protest his innocence and maintained that he had never been to Devon.
The jury took just sixteen minutes to find both defendants guilty of murder. But as the judge, Mr Justice Williams, was reaching for his black cap to pronounce the death sentence, Galley again cried out that he was innocent. Buckingham Joe then suddenly made an extraordinary outburst, admitting, ‘I did it.’ Then, pointing to Galley, he said, ‘The man that was with me was a man no more like that man than that candle.’ Although Justice Williams still directed both men to be executed, he ordered further investigations while they awaited the noose. Quizzed by investigators, Galley eventually managed to remember some of the men that he had met at Dartford on 16 July. They were contacted by letter and all confirmed that he had been there and not in Moretonhampstead on the day in question. While Buckingham Joe went to the gallows on 12 August 1836, Galley was granted a stay of execution. In the end, though more witnesses were produced to prove his alibi, Galley was not given an immediate pardon. Instead his sentence was changed to transportation for life. He arrived in Australia in 1839 where he made a new life for himself. However, he continued to plead his innocence and back in Britain his case was kept alive by campaigners. Galley was eventually granted a pardon in 1879. Although he was given the opportunity of returning to his homeland with compensation he decided to remain in Australia where he now had a family. He died there in 1885.
LOCATIONS: White Hart Hotel, The Square, Moretonhampstead, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ13 8NF, 01647 440500, www.whitehartdartmoor.co.uk
KILLING ‘THE DEVIL’, 1843
The Ship Inn, Cobham, Kent
At 6 p.m. on the evening of 28 August 1843, a four-wheeled chaise pulled up at The Ship Inn, a historic watering hole in Cobham, Kent. Two men got out of the carriage, Richard Dadd, a 24-year-old artist, and his father, Robert. The pair knew The Ship well, for they had made reviving visits to the sixteenth-century inn together in the past. Robert asked the waiter, John Adams, whom he knew, to arrange some accommodation for them. Although there were no rooms available at The Ship, beds were found for the duo in some nearby cottages. A little later the waiter served Richard some biscuits and cheese while Robert ordered some broiled ham and porter. Staff observed that his son’s manner was very sullen.
After the meal, Richard proposed to his father that they go for a walk, but Robert said he was too tired and ordered a whisky. At about 9.30 p.m., Richard again asked his father if he would step out with him for a stroll. This time Robert agreed and they set off on a path through Cobham Park, a large country estate nearby. They were returning towards the village and passing a chalk pit called Paddock’s Hole when Robert turned his back on Richard in order to relieve himself. It was at this moment, at around 11p.m., that Dadd set upon his father. First he tried to slit Robert’s throat with a razor, but he failed to deliver a fatal wound. Then Dadd pulled out a sailor’s knife, stabbing his father in the chest.
Robert’s dead body was discovered the next morning by a passing butcher, Charles Lyster, who was on his way to market. The corpse was brought back down to the village where it was placed in a building at the rear of The Ship. Suspicion soon fell on Dadd Junior as he had not returned to the Ship the night before. The only trace of the culprit was two bloody handprints on the top rung of a stile near the scene of Robert’s murder.
Richard Dadd was born in 1817 at Chatham in Kent. The fourth of seven children, from a young age he showed a considerable talent as an artist. His father, Robert, was a chemist, while his mother died when Richard was just 7
years old. In 1834, Robert moved the family to London to take up a new job as a carver and gilder, and by the age of 20, Dadd’s artistic skills saw him admitted to the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts, where he soon established a considerable reputation, mixing with some of the leading artists of his generation. In July 1842 he was asked by his patron, the solicitor Sir Thomas Phillips from Newport, to accompany him as a draughtsman on a Grand Tour to Europe and the Middle East. During the trip, which took in Germany, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Syria, Dadd produced a sheaf of excellent watercolours and drawings. Yet during a journey down the River Nile in Egypt he began to exhibit strange symptoms, becoming increasingly violent and delusional; he was convinced that he was being pursued by devils. He attacked Sir Thomas and, as the party made their way through Rome, even considered trying to assassinate the Pope. At first it was thought that he was suffering from sunstroke but after Dadd returned to England in May 1843 his behaviour became increasingly erratic. He shut himself up in his studio and lived on little but hard-boiled eggs and ale. In the coming months he painted portraits of his friends but would add the chilling detail to each of a red gash across their throats. On 26 August, a Dr Alexander Sutherland at St Luke’s Asylum declared that he was mentally unstable and potentially dangerous. He recommended that Dadd be confined.
Robert Dadd, however, was clearly very fond of his son and offered to care for him rather than see him committed to an institution where he might languish for the rest of his life. Dadd suggested to his father that they should go to the country so he could ‘unburden his mind’. So, on the 28th, the pair set off to enjoy the rural charms of Cobham and the surrounding countryside, an area which Dadd the younger knew well from his youth. It was all a ruse. Dadd was now convinced that his father was the devil. The Egyptian God Osiris had ‘ordered’ him to kill this imposter.
After the murder, Dadd made for The Crown at Rochester. Here he hurriedly washed his hands before leaving in a carriage. As the vehicle passed The Star he threw a bloodied towel he had used to wipe his hands over a hedge. Dadd was heading for Dover by way of The George at Sittingbourne. Crossing the English Channel in a small hired boat, he then travelled on to Paris. His intention was to find and kill more ‘devils’. Among his targets was Emperor Franz Ferdinand I of Austria. But while travelling on a stagecoach near Fontainebleau in September he unsuccessfully attempted to cut the throat of another passenger. He was restrained and quickly arrested. Dadd admitted to French police that he had killed his father and was put in a local asylum before being taken back to England in July 1844 to face trial.
Dadd appeared at Maidstone Assizes in August that year where he was swiftly found unfit to plead and committed to Bethlem Hospital in Southwark, better known as Bedlam. He was almost certainly suffering from paranoid schizophrenia – at least two of his siblings also suffered from mental conditions. Dadd was later moved to Broadmoor asylum when it opened in 1863. Ironically, during his incarceration, he was encouraged to continue with his painting and completed some of his finest works during this period of his life, including his most famous masterpiece, The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke. Dadd died on 7 January 1886. The chalk pit in Cobham Park, where the murder was committed, is now known as Dadd’s Hole.
LOCATIONS: The Ship Inn, No. 14 The Street, Cobham, Gravesend, Kent, DA12 3BN, 01474 814 326, www.johnbarras.com; The Crown, No. 2 High Street, Rochester, ME1 1PT, 01634 814874, www.thecrownrochester.co.uk
POISONED BY DOCTOR DEATH, 1855
The Shrew and The Albion, Rugeley, Staffordshire; Lamb & Flag, Little Haywood, Staffordshire; Cross Keys Hotel, Hednesford, Staffordshire
The murderous Dr Harold Shipman, who preyed on his own unfortunate patients, is reckoned to have done away with 250 people over two decades. Finally convicted of murder in 2000, he was Britain’s worst serial killer and eventually hanged himself in his prison cell. The nineteenth century had its own doctor death, William Palmer, who is believed to have killed as many as fifteen people during his lifetime, including his own wife and children. The apparently genial Shipman concealed his criminal character beneath a veil of charm which helped him get away with his secret killing spree. And it appears that Palmer was also invested with an outward affability that enabled him to avoid detection for some years.
Palmer was born on 6 August 1824 in Rugeley, the son of Sarah and Joseph, a timber merchant. At the age of 17 he became a chemist’s assistant in Liverpool but was soon in trouble, sacked on suspicion of stealing money. He attempted to regain respectability by studying medicine, landing a role as a student at Stafford Infirmary where he first became interested in poisons, then went to London where he qualified as a doctor in 1846. Palmer returned to Rugeley to practise, renting a house in Market Street. Around this time he would often call for drink at The Lamb and Flag in Little Haywood, a village nearby. It was here that he met what many believe to have been his first victim, George Abley. Palmer, who established a reputation as a womanizer as well as a murderer, was besotted with George’s attractive wife and one night challenged him to a brandy-drinking contest. An hour later George fell ill. He died in his bed later that evening. His death was officially put down to natural causes. Later there were whispers that Palmer had tampered with Abley’s brandy.
On 7 October 1847, Palmer married 20-year-old Anne Thornton, the illegitimate daughter of Colonel William Brookes, who had owned the Noah’s Ark inn at Stafford. Before its closure in 2013, this pub was renamed both The Surgery and Palmers thanks to its link to the desperate doctor. Despite what should have been a lucrative profession, Palmer was always short of cash, often losing heavily by gambling on horse races. Anne was a good prospect in this regard. Her mother Mary, who had been housekeeper and mistress to Brookes, had inherited £8,000 when he died. In 1849 she came to stay with her daughter and her husband but died two weeks later, aged 50. The cause of her death was recorded as ‘apoplexy’. The timing of her demise seemed, in retrospect, suspicious to say the least. Palmer was said to have been disappointed with the size of Anne’s eventual inheritance.
During the years that followed, Palmer and Anne had five children, only one of which would survive. The rest succumbed to mysterious convulsions. The suggestion is that a financially embarrassed Palmer, seeing the youngsters as an extra expense that he could ill afford, poisoned them all.
In 1850 Palmer went to Chester Races with a brewer called Leonard Bladen to whom he owed money. Bladen had a lucky day, scooping a sizeable sum, and returned as a guest to Palmer’s house in Rugeley. On 10 May, Bladen fell ill and died, in agony, at the house. His death certificate reported that he died of a hip injury and an abscess. But when his wife arrived she was surprised to find that none of Bladen’s winnings were on his body.
By 1854, Palmer was heavily in debt to the tune of at least £23,000 and took out a life insurance policy on his wife for £13,000. By that September Anne had swiftly died, aged just 27. This time the official cause of death was cholera. Palmer claimed the cash but continued to be hounded by creditors. In early 1855, he took out another policy, this time on his alcoholic brother, Walter. Soon he was dead too, but this time the insurance company smelled a rat, refusing to pay out. Palmer, who had virtually given up medicine to concentrate on gambling by this stage, was also being blackmailed by a former mistress.
At this time Palmer lived opposite the Talbot Arms in Market Street, Rugeley, Staffordshire, which had been a coaching inn since around 1700. The Talbot later became The Crown, then The Shrewsbury Arms. Today it is called The Shrew. In the 1850s it was probably the best accommodation that Rugeley had to offer, though a contemporary account described it as looking like an ‘aged gaol’. It was here that, on Wednesday 15 November, a friend of Palmer, John Parsons Cook, booked a room. In the two preceding days, Cook and Palmer had been to the races at Shrewsbury. Cook had won a hefty £3,000, while Palmer had, as usual, backed a loser. Cook celebrated his win with Palmer at the Raven Inn, Shrewsbury, where he complained that the brandy had ‘burnt his throat�
��. Tellingly, Palmer had been seen in the pantry pouring some fluid from a small bottle into a tumbler.
Two days later, at the Talbot, the friends shared coffee in Cook’s room. Cook vomited and became seriously ill. Later the same day, Palmer sent for some broth from the Albion pub nearby, which Palmer poured into a cup in his kitchen and sent over to Cook at the Talbot. On the following day, when some more broth for Cook was brought over on Palmer’s instruction the Talbot’s chambermaid, Elizabeth Mills, tasted it and was violently sick. Cook briefly recovered while Palmer obligingly went to collect Cook’s outstanding betting proceeds for him. He also secretly bought some strychnine. The following night a servant at the Talbot found Cook violently screaming and writhing in his bed. Rushing over, Palmer gave him some pills. Cook, aged just 28, died at 1 a.m. on 21 November.
The death mask of serial killer William Palmer. (Courtesy of Wellcome Library, London)
Two days later, Cook’s stepfather, William Stevens, arrived and became suspicious when he saw the stiffness of the body. He was also puzzled that Cook had seemed perfectly healthy when he’d seen them earlier in the month. Palmer told Stevens that Cook, whose betting books had suddenly gone missing, owed him money. Stevens demanded a post-mortem which was conducted on 26 November at the Talbot in shambolic circumstances. One of the two medical students who were given the task was drunk. Incredibly Palmer, already rumoured to be Cook’s killer, was present too and ‘bumped’ into one of the students who was removing the contents of Cook’s stomach so that they spilled. He then tried to tamper with the jar the remains were kept in. Samples from the post-mortem were sent to an eminent toxicologist and, although they weren’t satisfactory, he formed the opinion that Cook had been poisoned. Meanwhile, Palmer did himself no favours by attempting to bribe the coroner of the inquest that followed, and the jury’s verdict was that ‘The deceased died of poison wilfully administered to him by William Palmer.’