by Payne, Chris
The Clerkenwell Explosion and Beyond
December 1867 – July 1868
Despite the successful arrest of Burke and the decision to increase the number of detectives, members of the government were still concerned about the perceived lack of efficacy of intelligence gathering and surveillance of the Fenians in England and the complacent and dismissive attitudes of Mayne; issues that Ireland’s chief secretary Lord Mayo had first raised in August and September 1866. Prime Minister Lord Derby met privately with Chancellor of the Exchequer Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Mayo on 9 December 1867 ‘to discuss establishing a “separate and secret organization” to supplement the existing police’.135 Home Secretary Gathorne Hardy was on holiday at the time and appears, like the Metropolitan Police commissioner, to have become aware of the proposals only after they were a fait accompli. Lieutenant-Colonel William Feilding, of the Coldstream Guards based in Ireland, had been identified as the ideal person to head this ‘secret service department’. Feilding had been active in investigations into Fenianism in the army and had cultivated a number of spies and informants in England and Ireland to assist him in that task. After clarification of his role and responsibilities, Feilding arrived in London on the morning of 14 December, the day after a catastrophic event had taken place which ‘graphically illustrated the dangers England faced and the incompetence of the London police’.136
Following the successful rescue of Kelly and Deasy in Manchester, it was perhaps not unreasonable to anticipate that a similar attempt could be made to free Ricard Burke. After his arrest, Burke and his colleague, Casey, were being held in the Clerkenwell House of Detention. At midday on 11 December the Home Office received a detailed tip-off from Ireland that a rescue was planned: ‘The plan is to blow up the exercise walls by means of gunpowder – the hour between 3 and 4 p.m.; and the signal for “all right”, a white ball thrown up outside when he is at exercise.’137
After its receipt at the Home Office, the information was passed quickly to the Metropolitan Police. From that point there are some significant discrepancies in the historical record with regard to the steps taken by the police.138 Suffice it to say that whatever precise steps were taken, they were inadequate and misdirected. In what appears to have been farcical incompetence, the police took too literally the phrase ‘to blow up’ (contained in the warning message), suspecting that it was the intention of the Fenians to blow up the walls (from underground) using mines, whereas it materialised that their plans were instead ‘to blow down’ the walls using a gunpowder bomb! As a consequence, there was an insufficient police presence outside the prison walls to prevent the forthcoming events. On the afternoon of 12 December, a man was seen by one witness to wheel a gunpowder barrel to the prison wall and light a fuse. A white rubber ball was thrown over the wall and was picked up by a curious warder who pocketed it. Meanwhile, having seen the ball, Burke retreated to a corner of the exercise yard to await the blast, which never came because the fuse fizzled out. The barrel was wheeled away again. The following day, the bomb was set successfully, but arrangements had been made for Burke to exercise at a different time and he was not in the yard. At 3.45–3.50 p.m. on 13 December, the explosion blew down a length of the prison wall and demolished the fronts of many houses and shops in Corporation Row.139 No prisoners escaped or died but at least six deaths occurred amongst members of the public as a direct consequence of the explosion, and no less than six more died through indirectly associated causes; 120 individuals were wounded. Once again, historical accounts of the event rarely agree on the final details of the damage caused.
Not surprisingly, criticism of the police came thick and fast, with Mayne and the detectives in particular being in the sights of the critics. Disraeli wrote to Lord Derby:
It is my opinion that nothing effective can be done in any way in these dangers, if we don’t get rid of Mayne. I have spoken to Hardy [Home Secretary] who says he ‘wishes to God he would resign’, but, surely, when even the safety of the State is at stake, there ought to be no false delicacy in such matters … I think you ought to interfere.140
Derby told Disraeli:
It is really lamentable that the peace of the metropolis, and its immunity from wilful devastation, should depend on a body of Police, who, as Detectives, are manifestly incompetent; and, under a chief who, whatever may be his other merits, has not the energy, nor, apparently, the skill to find out and employ men fitted for peculiar duties.141
Writing to the queen, Derby described the Metropolitan Police as ‘overworked and dispirited’ and ‘especially deficient as a detective force’.142 But, as others have pointed out, the disaster was not so much the result of poor detective work – it was poor everyday policing of the streets.143 Ultimately, compare the political bluster of Derby and Disraeli with the actions taken by them. Having expressed their trenchant views within their own political circles, Mayne was allowed to continue until he died in post (despite at least one report that he had offered his resignation after the Clerkenwell explosion).144 In equally contradictory style, those Scotland Yard detectives who had worked on the Fenian conspiracy were rewarded with substantial gratuities for their efforts.145
The day after the Clerkenwell explosion, Lieutenant-Colonel Feilding started his new posting at the Home Office as head of the new ‘secret service department’. By Christmas, appointments to the ‘department’ included Captain Whelan, Robert Anderson and the temporary use of Irish Constabulary detectives. Beyond some initial successes in intelligence gathering, the successful recruitment of a long-term informer of American Fenian activity (Thomas Beach aka Henri Le Caron) and the establishment of Robert Anderson within the Home Office as an expert on Fenianism, the department added little value. This was not necessarily the fault of its members, but a combination of changing political imperatives, little or no co-operation with or from Scotland Yard, and (by March 1868) a significant weakening of the Fenian threat. The department was disbanded at the end of March 1868, leaving only Robert Anderson in place as an assistant on Irish Affairs within the Home Office.146 Ultimately, it was left to the Metropolitan Police to pick up the pieces from Clerkenwell and to trace those responsible for the explosion. This involved not only the small number of detectives, but substantial numbers of police from other divisions. What follows is a brief summary of the investigation, of the arrests made and the subsequent trial; fuller accounts are available elsewhere.147
Immediately after the explosion had occurred, three people seen loitering near the Clerkenwell House of Detention were arrested. These were Anne Justice, Jeremiah Allen and Timothy Desmond. Justice had been visiting Casey in prison that day; Desmond came from an Irish community suspected of having strong Fenian connections and Allen claimed to be working for the police. On 20 December at Bow Street Police Court a self-confessed Fenian, James Vaughan, implicated himself and gave evidence which implicated four others – Nicholas English, Patrick Mullany, William Desmond and John O’Keefe – in the planning and execution of the bombing.148 Describing one of the Bow Street Police Court scenes Percy Fitzgerald recorded that: ‘As the authorities were now dealing with desperadoes, the novel spectacle was seen of policemen armed to the teeth with revolvers and cutlasses, for fear of a rescue.’149
In January 1868, Patrick Mullany decided to volunteer information to the police to save his own skin. The information he gave was damaging to his co-conspirators, but Mullany also added a new name to the list of suspects; that of a man from Glasgow, calling himself Jackson, but whose real name was Barrett. According to Mullany it was Barrett who had set off the explosion. By coincidence, a man named Willy Jackson had been arrested in a Glasgow street in mid-January following the discharge of a firearm, and was still being held by the Glasgow police, who had regarded him with sufficient suspicion to inform Scotland Yard. Williamson and some other officers from the detective department (probably including Clarke) travelled to Glasgow and returned with Jackson, who was subsequently identified as Michael Barrett. Individuals
who had known Barrett before in London commented that he had changed his appearance between December 1867 and January 1868 by shaving off his whiskers, and some witnesses appeared to have difficulty in identifying him as a consequence. This created problems for the police who were seeking witnesses able to place Barrett in London in December, and at the scene of the bombing at Clerkenwell.
From the limited information of Clarke’s involvement with the Clerkenwell inquiries, it appears that he helped to assemble identification evidence. He is known to have interviewed at least one witness, Thomas Kensley, who later gave evidence of Barrett’s identity at the trial. Clarke also sent Detective Sergeant Sunerway (together with a Fenian informer) to Halstead, on 1 January 1868, to identify a man that the Essex Constabulary had arrested, whose description appeared to fit that of an individual wanted in connection with the bombing; it proved to be a false lead.150 However, it seems that Clarke’s main task at that time continued to be information gathering on Fenians and their plans. In late December 1867, Mayne had forwarded a report by Clarke and Williamson to Dublin Castle on the subject of ‘Dr O’Leary’.151 This was a reference to Dr Edmund O’Leary, the half-brother of Ellen O’Leary and the imprisoned Irish People editor John O’Leary. Edmund O’Leary had qualified as a doctor and had a London practice in Fetter Lane. The historical record now suggests that when the Fenians were penniless and on the run (as they had been after the failed rising), Edmund O’Leary acted as a courier of funds to Paris, including funds of his own that were never repaid.152 The details that Clarke’s report contained are unknown but, at the time, the Irish authorities commented that there was no evidence of importance against O’Leary and no warrant for his arrest.153 In a different activity, correspondence from Mayne early in 1868 indicates that the police were, to some extent, intercepting mail to enhance their Fenian intelligence-gathering operation, and Clarke was involved in that process.154
When the time had come for the Old Bailey trial of those arrested for the Clerkenwell explosion, those in the dock on 20 April 1868 were charged with the wilful murder of Sarah Ann Hodgkinson, one of the victims of the explosion. They were Anne Justice, Timothy Desmond, William Desmond, Nicholas English, John O’Keefe and Michael Barrett, all of whom pleaded ‘not guilty’.155 Of those previously remanded, Mullany and Vaughan had turned ‘Queen’s Evidence’ and appeared as witnesses for the prosecution. Clarke was not called to give evidence and had been sent by Mayne to Cheshire on other duties.
The Clerkenwell explosion trial lasted seven days and in view of the nature of the crime, and the subsequent public outrage it had created, was closely watched by politicians and public alike. Montagu Williams, who was counsel for Anne Justice and was known as ‘the passionate defender of hopeless causes’, has left some first-hand recollections of events during the seven days at the Old Bailey:
To judge by the appearance of the prisoners, the Fenian movement must have been at a somewhat low ebb at that time. With the exception of Barrett, the accused seemed to be in a state of extreme poverty … [Barrett was] a square-built fellow, scarcely five feet eight in height, and dressed like a well-to-do farmer … A less murderous countenance than Barrett’s, indeed I do not remember to have seen … The only time I saw Barrett’s face change was during the examination of the informers, and the look of disgust, scorn and hatred that he turned on these two miserable creatures was a thing to be remembered.156
Anne Justice was discharged on 23 April, when Lord Chief Justice Cockburn adjudged that the evidence against her was too slight to be sent to the jury and the prosecution case was also abandoned on the following day against O’Keefe, who was likewise discharged. As his female client left the dock, Montagu Williams recalled: ‘She turned round to where Barrett was sitting, seized him by the hand, and with two large tears rolling down her cheeks, kissed him very gently on the forehead. Then she hurried away. This was not a very judicious proceeding perhaps – but how like a woman.’157 On 27 April the jury members retired, taking two and a half hours to reach their verdict – a relatively long time for Victorian juries. On their return, the Desmonds and English were declared ‘not guilty’, and Barrett ‘guilty’. Before sentencing, Barrett requested, and was granted, the opportunity to say a few words:
I do not intend to occupy much of your Lordship’s time, being fully conscious that any words of mine could in no way alter your Lordship’s mind in this matter. Still, I cannot allow this opportunity to pass, as it is likely to be the only one I shall have on this side the grave, of endeavouring to place myself as I should like to stand before my fellow men. In doing so I may be compelled to expose the means that have been resorted to for the purpose of securing my conviction. I am not, however, going to adopt a whining tone or to ask for mercy; but yet I address your lordship as a humble individual whose career has been mercilessly assailed, and I wish to defend it, conscious as I am that I have never wilfully, maliciously or intentionally injured a human being that I am aware of…158
Describing Mullany as ‘that Prince of perjurers’, Barrett saved his strongest words for the police. Referring to evidence given by a young witness, Thomas Wheeler, that it was Barrett who had lit the fuse of the bomb, Barrett stated that the witness had been intimidated by the police and that a ‘positive’ identification had been made only when: ‘a wretch wearing the uniform [of a police officer] brought the boy back and held him by the shoulder until he was compelled to admit that he knew me.’159 The police who had transported him from Glasgow to London were also targets for his criticism:
I was hurried off to London where they knew I was alone and in their power. Their nervous haste, indeed has subjected me to the most flagrant injustice. I do not allude to the higher authorities in Glasgow, but I do to the mean, low, petty, truckling creatures who hang about police courts and who would not hesitate to have recourse to the most vile and heinous practices to benefit themselves, or even to gain a smile of approval from their superiors. They will now congratulate themselves on the success of their schemes.160
Finally, and anticipating the inevitable death sentence, he said ‘I will now seek that other land, where I trust to obtain justice’. Barrett’s ‘few words’ had lasted some thirty minutes and made a profound impression on those present, including Montagu Williams, who later wrote that ‘I think I can safely say that there was not a dry eye in the court’.161 Needless to say, as only one of the six initially accused had been found guilty, the mood of the politicians, the press and the public was also to blame the police, though from a different perspective than Barrett. It was not a good time to be a policeman.
Between sentence and execution, the case against Barrett was reviewed in depth by the principal trial judge, Lord Chief Justice Cockburn. Though the evidence that placed Barrett as lighting the fuse was regarded as less than satisfactory, Cockburn put little store in Barrett’s alibi, and the evidence of his active involvement in the conspiracy to liberate Burke was regarded as sufficiently convincing that Cockburn finally reached the decision that the trial verdict was safe, and this view was submitted to the Home Secretary and accepted by him.162 On 26 May 1868, outside Newgate, the death sentence was implemented and Barrett became the last person to be hung in public in the British Isles: ‘Barrett mounted the steps with the most perfect firmness … he bore himself to the last with great fortitude … He died without making any confession of the crime of which he was convicted … Yet there was this peculiarity about him … that he never absolutely denied his guilt.’163
That Barrett helped plan Burke’s rescue seems certain. However, he was certainly not alone in planning and carrying out the explosion, though he was the only one to be convicted. At the time of the trial, the person believed to have led the implementation of the plan to free Burke (a plan that was conceived by Burke himself) was James Murphy, the Fenian commander in Scotland who had escaped to France.164 Various authors have suggested that the bomb itself was not set by Barrett but by Jeremiah O’Sullivan, who ran from the scene chased by
police but escaped and eventually reached America.165
While large numbers of police were employed in tracing the perpetrators of the explosion, others were actively engaged in tasks to help reassure their political masters and the general public, who feared a Fenian campaign of terror. Substantial numbers of special constables were recruited and deployed in London to afford protection to life and property in their respective districts. Clarke is known to have visited Leeds around this time, either to identify Fenians attending pro-Fenian processions in the city or, perhaps, to investigate the Irishmen ‘observed loitering in a suspicious manner near the New Gas Company’s Works in Dewsbury-road Leeds’.166 If you had an Irish or American accent, and didn’t want to be taken into custody, now was not the time to stand anywhere potentially explosive.
The nervousness about Fenian intentions also led to checks of the sewers (as possible locations for bombs) beneath key buildings in central London. The searches, conducted by police and engineers under the guidance of the London Metropolitan Board of Works on 20 December 1867, revealed ‘all correct’ but demonstrated, on at least one occasion, the potential hazards for the men involved when their poor underground navigation or over-enthusiasm prompted concerns:
Police Sergeant Reimers … accompanied by Police Constable Hilder and Corporal Bingham of the Royal Engineers report having carefully explored the sewer leading from the Thames Embankment to the River front of Somerset House, thence entered at Savoy Street and examined all side shores, coming out at Wellington Street, corner of Russell Street and entered again at Essex Street, passing under Wych Street and Drury Lane, coming out at Russell Street by Drury Lane Theatre. The party caused considerable anxiety to Mr. Lovick, of the Office of Works at Cannon Row, where we were equipped, as they received instructions only to explore the vicinity of Somerset House, and no directions were given that they were to proceed to Wych Street or Drury Lane. They were absent from 6.30 p.m. until 10.40 p.m.167