Derbyshire Murders

by Martin Baggoley

  Dr Bingham found no external injuries, which confirmed that she had not been subjected to any form of physical violence prior to death. He noted a brownish fluid, which he could not identify, had dribbled from her mouth, and although her organs showed no signs of damage, he found some blue particles in her stomach and small intestine. He put these organs in a sealed jar, which he forwarded to Mr Allen for analysis. The doctor could find no cause of death; that task would fall to Mr Allen.

  The analyst discovered a number of worms, each 8 or 9in in length, in her intestines, but these were unrelated to her death. More significantly, he found evidence of strychnine in all her organs, which totalled eight tenths of a grain. He estimated that it would have taken one grain of the poison to kill a girl of her build and age, and he concluded that two grains had been administered. He also believed that it had been mixed with an ultramarine liquid, which had probably been a poison used to kill vermin. However, he could not identify the particular product used; those freely available at the time were Battle’s, which was indigo in colour, Gabbitans’s, which was white, and the pink-coloured Evison’s. It was after he had forwarded this information to the police at Alfreton that Constable James was sent to arrest Horton.

  At the adjourned inquest on 5 June, Mr Allen confirmed the results of his tests, and told the coroner that there was no doubt in his mind that strychnine had been used to poison the victim, and that she must have taken it about one hour before her death. The coroner’s jury had no hesitation in finding Horton responsible for his daughter’s murder, although as yet no motive for the crime had been identified.

  The accused was born in 1852 and having experienced a better education than most of his contemporaries he was able to read and write to a high standard. Unfortunately he did not put this advantage in life to good use, for as a youth he had a reputation for laziness and dissolute behaviour. He was restless, unstable and found it difficult to hold down a job for very long.

  His reputation did not improve greatly after his marriage and the birth of his children, for in those early days he was known to be a poor husband and father. Indeed, during the police investigation it emerged that Rose Rachel had decided to go and live with her relatives in Lincolnshire because of her father’s regular violence towards her, and not to reduce the family’s financial burden as he had claimed. He was out of work regularly and drank heavily. In 1884 the family moved from Newark to Swanwick, and it was only in the more recent past he had found employment at the colliery.

  However, the illness and subsequent death of his wife appeared to have been a cathartic experience. He stopped drinking, joined the local Primitive Methodist Society, and he and his children began to attend the church regularly. Nevertheless, he found it difficult to cope financially, despite his two daughters leaving home and the extra rent from the Browskills. However, it did appear to those who knew him that he had adopted a more settled lifestyle and was taking his family responsibilities much more seriously. Sadly, this would prove not to have been the case.

  The police discovered from John Wild, the Swanwick agent of the Refuge Insurance Company, that in the April of the previous year, Horton’s late wife had insured the lives of all of the children, and paid one penny each week in respect of each of them. The agreement was that after paying for one year, the parents would receive £7 if Kate died, but had she died before April 1889 no payment would have been made on the policy. Thus, Kate’s death was within a few weeks of her father becoming eligible for a payment of £7 upon her death, and this, the police believed, provided the motive for the little girl’s murder.

  There was at the time widespread concern regarding the link between insurance policies being taken out on children, and their subsequent murders by poverty-stricken parents. The Friendly Societies Act of 1846 had meant that insuring the lives of children under six years of age was forbidden, and that the insurance on children aged less than ten years was restricted to a maximum of £3. In 1855 however, these regulations were relaxed, meaning that children under five years of age could be insured for £6, and those aged between five and ten years could be insured for a maximum of £10.

  Ostensibly, this meant that for a small weekly outlay to what became known as burial clubs, parents could ensure that in an age of high child mortality rates, especially among the poor, a decent burial could be provided for their children, thereby avoiding the shame of a pauper’s grave. However, within a short time it was being claimed by some police officers, coroners, magistrates and judges across the country that many children were being murdered by their parents for the cash.

  At the hearings of the Royal Commission on Friendly Societies in 1870, several witnesses had made such claims, but these went unheeded. In 1888, just one year before Kate’s death, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Friendly Societies had stated that, ‘The impression of our committee is that in fact, life assurance is a direct incentive to the destruction of infant life’. However, to the insurance companies this was a lucrative part of their business, for many thousands of weekly premiums of trifling sums of a penny or a halfpenny meant large amounts of cash. Such companies were powerful institutions, and successive governments drew back from confronting them over this issue. It was not until the twentieth century that legislation was introduced preventing the life of a child being insured.

  In the Horton case the police believed that they had found evidence of premeditation when David Cowlishaw, another workmate of the accused, reported Horton having told him, ‘I have got shut of two of the children, and should soon be shut of the lot, and then I’ll take my hook’. Furthermore, the accused’s daughter, Annie Elizabeth, told investigators that on one occasion, two months before Kate’s death, she was being beaten by her father, who had screamed at her, ‘I will poison you out of the road!’

  Horton’s trial took place at the Derby Assizes on 29 July 1889. He pleaded not guilty, and as he had been unable to afford a lawyer, the judge directed a barrister, Mr Appleton to represent him.

  J.H. Etherington-Smith, who led the prosecution, acknowledged in his opening statement to the jury that the evidence against Horton was circumstantial. There was no scientific evidence which linked him directly to the crime, for nobody had seen him administer the poison, and the police had not been able to discover where the poison had been purchased by the accused. This was despite the determined efforts of Inspector Oldfield, who had personally visited all of the chemists for miles around Swanwick. The inspector had thought that Horton might have bought the poison at Ripley on the Saturday before Kate’s death, when he had travelled there with the Browskills to visit the town’s market. However, his neighbours assured the inspector he had not been out of their sight, and the officer failed to find any chemist in the town who remembered selling poison to anyone matching Horton’s description. Nevertheless, Mr Etherington-Smith insisted that the Crown had established a motive and could prove that he made threats to rid himself of his children. There was also Kate’s own statement that her father had given her the mysterious blue coloured drink shortly before she died.

  Despite the very short notice at which he had accepted the brief, Mr Appleton was able to provide a spirited defence for his client. He emphasised the absence of an eyewitness and of physical evidence, together with the fact that there was no proof that poison had ever been present in the house, in which mousetraps had been used to catch vermin. Mr Appleton acknowledged that it was unlikely that anyone else in the house would have administered the poison, but he did suggest another scenario. Perhaps, he suggested to the jury, there was some poison in Kate’s bedroom which nobody, including the deceased or her father, knew about, and she had taken it accidentally.

  In his summing up to the jury, the judge also acknowledged the circumstantial nature of the evidence against the accused. He did however advise the jury that despite the sordid nature of the alleged motive, namely that Horton had murdered his daughter for £7 insurance money, they should not dismiss it as a possibility. After delib
erating for thirty minutes the jury found him guilty, but before being sentenced to death, the condemned man insisted that he was innocent.

  He continued to maintain his innocence until it became clear that there would be no reprieve. Now resigned to his fate, he made a full confession to Revd J.E. Matthews, vicar of Swanwick, who had visited Horton regularly in the condemned cell since his parishioner’s conviction. He described buying the vermin killer he used to murder the girl, from the shop of chemist Mr Wain in Ripley some weeks prior to the crime, and using a false name when required to sign a poison register. After administering the poison, he had wandered in nearby fields before returning home. Although he had been teetotal for more than one year, he blamed alcohol for his continuing poverty and downfall. He had decided on murder, as he feared losing his home and the break-up of his family, which he had hoped the insurance money would prevent.

  As his execution drew nearer, Horton wrote to his daughter Sarah Jane at the Belper workhouse, where the children were now living. The letter ended in the following way:

  God bless you all my Dear Daughter. You must be sure to pray to God to guide you all your life through and you must pray for your brothers and sisters. I do pray to God to guard you all your life through, so my Dear Daughter you must always think of what I have told you. You must always tell the truth and when you are tempted to do wrong you must pray to God for his help and he will hear you. Always remember that my Dear Children, and you must tell the others the same that is your brothers and sisters. God has promised to be a father to you always. Remember that he sees all that you do and all you think. Then if you do his will while here on earth he will receive you to his throne in glory where all is peace and rest. So my dear children you will be able to meet all your brothers and sisters and your poor dear mother in heaven, and by the help of God I shall meet you there too. So you must look to God for his help. You must never take anything that is not your own, and always tell the truth as I have always told you before.

  Annie Elizabeth and Rachel Rose had already visited their father, knowing that he had confessed to the murder. He now asked Sarah Jane if she and the younger children would come to see him. The Belper Board of Guardians agreed that such a visit could take place, and the children arrived wearing their workhouse clothes. The warders, who were in the cell in which the visit took place, later described it as a harrowing experience. The condemned man kissed his children repeatedly, and urged them not to take after him, but be honest throughout their lives. He wept as they left and remained inconsolable for several hours.

  The prison authorities were becoming increasingly concerned as the execution date drew nearer. The last hanging at the gaol had been that of wife-killer Arthur Delaney, whose botched hanging resulted in his taking seven minutes to die as he was slowly strangled rather than dying instantaneously due to a broken neck, as he should have done. The governor, expressing his concerns and his desire to avoid a repetition of those unfortunate events, wrote to James Berry, who was to hang Horton. The experienced Berry replied, recommending that the iron beam from which the noose had been suspended for Delaney’s execution be replaced by a wooden one, which the executioner believed would provide a certain amount of spring when the body fell, thus preventing a repeat of the earlier debacle.

  Berry arrived the afternoon before the execution to find that the governor had followed his advice to the letter. He tested the scaffold and rope in order to ensure everything would proceed smoothly. Horton weighed 10st 4lb and was 5ft 3in tall. Berry initially calculated a drop of 5ft 6in, but after seeing that the condemned man was powerfully built and had a particularly strong and muscular neck, he extended the drop to 6ft.

  James Berry, whose professional expertise ensured a trouble-free execution. (Author’s collection)

  On the morning of the execution, Wednesday, 21 August, Horton had to be roused by the warders at six o’clock. He went for a walk in the gaol’s courtyard for twenty minutes, and on returning to his cell ate a breakfast of bread and butter and drank his final cup of tea. He was calm and appeared to have prepared himself for what lay ahead. At seven minutes to eight the chief warder entered the cell to accompany him to the scaffold, together with several other officials.

  He had to walk across an open courtyard, and passed his own grave, which had recently been dug. Fortunately there were no problems at the execution and he died instantly of a broken neck, after which he was left suspended for one hour. The body was then cut down and the inquest opened at ten o’clock. Breaking with tradition, James Berry stayed behind to attend the hearing, and accompanied the jury to the place of execution where he explained how the drop had been calculated, and why he had recommended a wooden beam. A few minutes later, Horton was buried and this tragic case drew to a close.

  11

  THE ABORTIONIST

  Osmaston, 1898

  There were two murder trials at the Derby Winter Assizes of 1898, but the circumstances surrounding the crimes could not have been more different.

  The first case concerned the death of Emily Eliza Robotham, a twentyseven-year-old single woman, who in the autumn of that year realised that very soon she would be dead. Her health had deteriorated rapidly during the previous few days, and on Thursday, 7 September 1898, she explained what had caused her to be in such a poor condition to Dr Wheatcroft, who had been caring for her. Having listened to her account, the doctor hurriedly arranged for Emily to make a deposition on oath later that evening, in which she would repeat her account of the circumstances that had led to her imminent death.

  Superintendent Airey was made aware that Emily had accused a Derby woman, Ruth Jane Talbot, a thirty-seven-year-old needlewoman of 66 Grayling Street, of being responsible. The superintendent called at the home of the accused woman to inform her of the allegations that had been made against her, and to request that she accompany him to hear the accusations directly from the mouth of her alleged victim. She and her husband travelled with Superintendent Airey to 17 Co-operative Buildings, Cotton Lane, Osmaston; the home of Mrs Coxon, with whom Emily had been staying.

  There were several other people gathered in the bedroom in which Emily lay, including the dying woman’s mother and several other relatives, Dr Wheatcroft, Mr A.B. Hamilton JP, who was to act as a witness to the deposition, and assistant magistrates’ clerk H.R. Whitson, who was there to write down the dying woman’s words. The deathbed statement was brief, and in it Emily stated that on the previous Tuesday, Talbot had performed an abortion on her.

  Osmaston Road. (Author’s collection)

  After the deposition had been made, Superintendent Airey arrested the accused woman for performing an illegal operation. She replied by asking, ‘Shall I be allowed to go home tonight?’ The answer was no, and Talbot was locked up in the local police cells. Two days later the superintendent informed her that Emily had died, and he charged her with murder. She burst into tears and the only words she uttered were, ‘Oh, I am sorry’.

  The tragedy had begun to unfold some weeks earlier. In July, Emily, who lived with her widowed mother and younger siblings in Abbey Street, Derby, told her mother that she was pregnant, and that the baby was due in late September or early October. Mrs Rowbotham made it clear to her daughter that she did not want the baby born in the family home. She cited lack of space but it is more likely that she did not wish the neighbours to know of the scandal that the family now faced.

  Emily, however, was fortunate in one respect, for the putative father had promised not to abandon her, and had agreed to acknowledge the baby was his. Furthermore, he had promised Emily and their child financial support in the future.

  Mrs Rowbotham became aware that Emily was in contact with Talbot, and was under the impression that she was simply a friend of her daughter’s. However, Emily was discussing her immediate future plans with the other woman, but it is not known whether an abortion was being considered or discussed at this stage. Talbot recommended one address at which Emily might stay, but this was visited by
her mother, who was not impressed, and this plan was abandoned. Mrs Rowbotham met Talbot, who was visiting her daughter, and the needlewoman said, ‘I wish Emily was not so far gone, and I could have pulled her through. I have got many a one out of the same mess, but in her weak state I dare not touch her.’

  Alarmed by this implicit threat of an abortion, which she had not realised was an option considered by her daughter, Mrs Rowbotham took matters into her own hands, and decided to make the necessary arrangements on behalf of Emily. She found her daughter accommodation with Mrs Coxon, where Emily was provided with her own comfortable bedroom. Mrs Coxon was a qualified and experienced midwife, and the arrangement seems to have been straightforward and legitimate, which involved Mrs Coxon arranging for proper medical care under the supervision of Dr Wheatcroft, who would also deliver the baby. The doctor visited his new patient regularly, and initially found her to be in good health.

  Emily arrived on 20 July, and Talbot visited her after a few days and thereafter became a regular visitor. Emily’s mother did not know of this, and Mrs Coxon presumed the two women were friends, and thought nothing more of it. However, by now Emily was facing a serious problem that needed to be resolved quickly. The man who had promised to support her financially, was in fact one of three men with whom she had been intimate earlier in the year. It was now realised that the baby was not that of the man supporting her, and if she was to convince him that it was his child she was carrying, it had to be born in August. If not, it would become obvious to him that the child was not his. Emily wanted their relationship to continue, and, worried that he may end it if he became aware that she had had another intimate relationship, she decided that she would have an abortion and paid Talbot £2 to perform it. This was with a view to telling the man afterwards that she had suffered a miscarriage. Later, Talbot would deny this, but did acknowledge that she had offered to perform an abortion with needles, but she insisted that Emily would not agree to such a course of action.