The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective

by Payne, Chris

  The response to Clarke’s account of events, by supporters of the Claimant and Luie, was immediate. In a letter published in The Times on 12 January 1874, George Whalley, referred to the ‘extraordinary statement of Detective Officer Clarke as to what Luie has, he alleges, confessed to him, and which, so far as I am concerned and also in other respects within my own knowledge is an absolute fiction’. Whalley then, displaying arrogance, folly or an ignorance of legal procedure (or probably a combination of all three), attended the next Bow Street hearing of Luie’s case on 15 January and asked to address the court. This was refused and he was told to pass any relevant information to Luie’s solicitor. Two days later, when Clarke was cross-examined, ‘the small attorney’s box was literally besieged by friends of the Claimant including Mr Whalley’.37 Undeterred in his attempt to negate the effect of Clarke’s evidence, Whalley then wrote further letters to the press including one published in the Daily News on 21 January which stated:

  As the statements of Detective Clarke of what Jean Luie has told him – though denied, as it seems by Luie himself – may materially prejudice the trial, I consider that I am called upon to state that nothing that has occurred in relation to this man [Luie] that affects my belief that his evidence as to the Osprey is substantially true.38

  Hearing of these letters, Lord Chief Justice Cockburn demanded that Whalley should appear at the Court of Queens Bench to answer a charge of contempt of court. Whalley was fined £250, which he refused to pay and, as a consequence, he was arrested and removed to Holloway Prison.39

  By now, the Claimant’s trial was proceeding to its conclusion. Henry Hawkins made reference to the detectives during his final statement for the prosecution:

  But as to Whicher and Clarke; I quite agree that you may have detectives who grossly deceive you, and you may also have men of all ranks and classes who will invent a story to deceive you. But Whicher and Clarke belong to a highly respectable body of men, and I challenge any one to point to a single thing, from the time when this Defendant first set foot in England till now, that Whicher, or Clarke, or Mackenzie [the agent sent by the Tichborne family to Australia in 1867] has done that has not been done in the strict discharge of the duties they had to perform. They have simply been employed in the detection of crime, and because they have discharged their duty, are they to be branded as perjurers? I shall say no more about them. You have heard a great deal about them, but hard words do not injure anybody’s character, and I say there has been no foundation for the attacks upon them.40

  The trial finally ended on 28 February 1874. The jury took only thirty minutes to reach a guilty verdict on the counts of perjury, and to conclude that the Claimant was not Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne, that he did not seduce Miss Katherine Doughty (Lady Radcliffe), and that he was Arthur Orton. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of seven years’ penal servitude.41

  Clarke’s involvement had been highly significant in undermining aspects of the pro-Claimant evidence, particularly that of ‘Luie’, and he had also exposed the incompetence of some of the Claimant’s supporters and legal team. Henry Hawkins commented later that:

  Luie’s story of picking him up in the boat must have amused him [the Claimant] greatly. If he was amused at the ease with which fools can be humbugged, he must also have been astounded at the awful villainy of those who, perfect strangers to him, had perjured themselves for the sake of notoriety.42

  Ultimately, the Claimant had only himself to blame for the end result of the charade that he had persisted with (and continued to persist with throughout most of his life). Nonetheless:

  Whatever crime the Claimant was guilty of, whatever view one may take of his moral obliquities, and of his mean, cruel and disgraceful lies told over a series of years to support a long-drawn-out fraud, we must not deny him some share of the virtue, which, according to Dr Johnson is the most important of all – courage.43

  Clarke’s responsibilities did not end when Arthur Orton was transferred to prison. He was still employed on the Luie perjury case which came to trial at the Old Bailey on 9 April 1874. A month prior to that, Clarke had also arrested Captain James Brown on a similar charge.44 At his trial Luie was charged under his real name of Carl Peter Lundgren; it had now been established that he was a native of Gothenberg. He had been a ship’s master and, in 1853, at the time that Luie had stated that he was on board the Osprey, he had been employed in Hull. Though Luie was legally represented at the beginning of his trial, his counsel had withdrawn by the time the defence were required to put their case, and his supporters were noticeable by their absence. There was one exception, the ever-present George Whalley, who offered himself as a witness for Luie, but was prevented by the judge from presenting his hearsay evidence. When summing up, the judge blamed Luie’s so-called friends for his lack of representation, and criticised Whalley for ‘tendering himself as a useless and futile witness’. The jury returned a unanimous ‘guilty’ verdict on the grounds of perjury. A charge of bigamy was not proceeded with, but was left on the books. Captain Brown was tried immediately after Luie, with a new jury, and also found guilty of perjury – the jury not finding it necessary to retire to consider their verdict. Luie was sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude and Brown to five years.45

  After the Claimant had been imprisoned, his popularity continued as his supporters transferred their efforts to securing his release. Others jumped on the bandwagon that the Claimant’s cause provided for their own radical political purposes.46 From 1875 onwards, there was a regular meeting at Hyde Park on Easter Monday in support of the Claimant’s cause. For these events, large numbers of police were put on standby and detectives attended to observe proceedings.47 By 1877 John de Morgan, a notorious radical of the time, had become involved in the Claimant’s cause. De Morgan was an Irish nationalist who, after arriving in London, had achieved success in leading a movement against the enclosure of common lands and, in 1875 and 1876, had taken direct action against the attempted enclosure of part of Hackney Downs and Plumstead Common. De Morgan had given notice to the Home Office that he planned to organise a march on the Houses of Parliament on 17 April to present a petition in favour of the Claimant’s release.48 Clarke, as the Scotland Yard expert on Tichborne-related matters, was asked to assess the significance of the threat. On 1 February 1877 Clarke reported that de Morgan: ‘… appears to be so elated by the notoriety he gained in getting up meetings for the preservation of Commons and Open Spaces, and is so eager to keep up his name before the public that I believe there is nothing too rash or too ridiculous for him to attempt.’49 On the 17 April, there was a significant police presence, but no disorder.

  This was the last time that Clarke was involved in matters relating to the Claimant. The Claimant himself was released from Pentonville Prison on 11 October 1884 on ticket of leave, continuing to insist that he was Sir Roger Tichborne until 1895, by which time he was destitute and had accepted an offer from The People to publish his ‘confession’, later retracting it. He died on 1 April 1898, an appropriate date for a man who had managed to hoodwink thousands of people, including his ‘mother’. About 5,000 people attended his funeral.50

  Theft at Gray’s Inn

  While the Tichborne case and betting prosecutions were the dominant features in Clarke’s working life between 1872 and 1875, these were far from being the only responsibilities that he had. In 1873, for example, His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Persia Nasir-al-Din paid his first visit to Britain, and wherever the shah went, Clarke was on his heels guarding his precious gems. Preparing for this important visit, Commissioner Henderson had assembled the latest statistics on the Metropolitan Police force, which had expanded considerably over the past few years. The shah was informed that ‘the streets of London patrolled by the Police would reach, in a straight line from London to Teheran, and thence to Point de Galle in Ceylon, 6,612 miles’.51 In 1873 the estimated population of London was almost 4 million; the numbers of police in the City and the Metropolitan areas
were 785 and 9,927 (449 and 14 per square mile), respectively. There were about 1,400 horse-drawn omnibuses, 8,108 hackney carriages and 25,000 horses on the streets.52 Indeed, since Clarke had joined the force in 1840 the population in London had doubled and the manpower levels in the Metropolitan Police had increased by a slightly greater factor (2.3 fold). Yet despite this overall increase and the 1869 enlargement of the detective department, Clarke was still expected to tackle a very diverse range of criminal investigations; including theft, murder in international waters, guarding visiting dignitaries and witness abductions. Clarke also provided cover for Superintendent Williamson when he was absent on business or leave.

  On 7 May 1872 Clarke was brought in at a late stage to investigate a number of thefts from lawyers’ offices at Gray’s Inn Square. Three separate burglaries and thefts had occurred at night at the offices of Messrs Denton, Hall and Barker during the previous year and had remained unsolved. The earlier burglaries had involved the theft of money, but the most recent had involved several valuable parchment deeds. This theft had been followed by the receipt of a letter, signed ‘C.M.H.’, offering to return the stolen deeds if £7 was paid. The writer used the post office in Judd Street as a poste restante address for reply. In February 1872, the nearby legal firm of Messrs Stuart and Massey had discovered that a locked iron box containing important documents had also been stolen. Mr Massey had placed a £20 reward notice in the newspapers for the return of the box and its contents. He subsequently received a letter from ‘W.H.’ (replies to the Gray’s Inn Road post office) asking if a reward would be given for the documents alone. After a prolonged correspondence, a £20 reward was paid using numbered banknotes, and the documents had been returned by a woman to the hall porter’s office at Gray’s Inn Square. The head porter, John Andrews, had been expecting such a delivery and called uniformed colleagues William Comley and P.C. David Edwards (posted at Gray’s Inn) to follow the woman. Taking the lead, Edwards asked Comley to hold back and follow at a distance, while he went in front. However, Edwards soon reported that he had lost sight of the woman, and the two men returned empty handed. Meanwhile, a watch had been put on the two post offices and, on 3 May, an E Division detective saw a woman collect a letter addressed to ‘C.M.H.’ at Judd Street. She was arrested and taken to Bow Street Police Station where she was recognised as Sarah Edwards, the wife of P.C. Edwards.53

  This apparent connection between the robberies and a serving officer drew a senior Scotland Yard officer on to the case. Clarke travelled to Bow Street Police Station on 9 May to collect P.C. Edwards and went from there to search the two rooms that Edwards and his wife rented. Finding examples of handwriting and stationery that corresponded with those in the letters sent to Gray’s Inn by ‘C.M.H.’ and ‘W.H.’, Clarke arrested Edwards and his wife. Later in the day Clarke also travelled to Walworth and arrested Sarah Edwards’ mother, Elizabeth Hopkins. In an identification parade, Hopkins was identified as the woman who had returned the stolen items by the Gray’s Inn Square hall porter, Andrews, and his colleague Comley.54 After several Bow Street Police Court hearings in front of the magistrate, Mr Flowers, the three prisoners were sent for trial at the Old Bailey. By then witnesses had been identified who could confirm that Sarah Edwards had collected mail for ‘C.M.H’ and ‘W.H.’ at the two post offices. The stationery used by ‘C.M.H.’ was also confirmed as the same as that found at Edwards’ lodgings, both items having the same watermark.55

  At the Old Bailey, the indictments were split between two trials. In the first, all three prisoners were indicted for stealing property from Mr Massey. Once again, Charles Chabot was called as a prosecution witness to confirm that Edwards’ handwriting was the same as that found on the letters written by ‘W.H.’ and ‘C.M.H.’ In Edwards’ case the handwriting evidence was almost the only direct evidence linking him to the theft of documents from Mr Massey. However, as the local and trusted police officer at Gray’s Inn Square, he had easy access to the offices that had been burgled, and his recruitment of family members to assist in the crimes added additional circumstantial evidence. He was found ‘guilty’ as charged. His mother-in-law, Elizabeth Hopkins, was found guilty of receiving, and sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment. The jury acquitted Sarah Edwards on the advice of the common serjeant that ‘it was to be presumed she was acting under the influence of her husband’. Thus the andro-centric Victorian viewpoint that a married woman had no independent thought or existence beyond that of her husband ensured that Sarah Edwards avoided prison. One assumes that, in the circumstances, she did not object too strongly to this. On the second indictment for stealing from Mr Hall, David Edwards decided to plead guilty and was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years’ penal servitude for the offences.56

  In their later years, several senior lawyers of the mid-Victorian era became increasingly critical of handwriting experts, Montagu Williams being one of them: ‘I never was much of a believer in experts in handwriting. I have examined and more frequently cross-examined, Chabot, Nethercliffe, and all the experts of the day, and have nearly always caught them tripping. In fact, in my opinion they are utterly unreliable.’57 Nonetheless, Clarke had once more helped secure a conviction and he was ‘highly commended by the Common Serjeant … for the intelligence and judgement shewn’.58

  The General Society for Assurance against Losses on the Turf

  At 2 a.m. on the morning of 15 February 1874, four men armed with revolvers attempted to break into Stannard’s Mill at Nayland near Colchester, only to find that the mill was occupied by Mr Stannard, his two sons and foreman. There was a skirmish, during which one of the burglars was arrested at the spot, but the others escaped and were believed to have headed to London. In view of the seriousness of the attempted armed robbery and the London connection, Scotland Yard was drawn into the enquiries; Inspector Pay of the detective department was given charge of the case.59 During Pay’s investigations, information emerged to suggest that the burglary had been planned at The Grapes, at Red Lion Square, Holborn. The youthful publican there, William Henry Walters, had been known to Clarke since 1871 as a betting man and he had already arrested Walters twice for betting offences.60 Walters had previously offered to act as an informant and, with Williamson’s agreement, Clarke sent Walters an unsigned letter to arrange a meeting. The letter was to assume great significance later:

  Westminster April 4, 1874

  Sir, I should be glad if you could make it convenient to call at my house from eight to nine p.m. this day. Very important. Don’t show this or bring anyone with you. If you cannot come I will be at Charing Cross Station at twelve noon tomorrow.61

  The lack of detail in the letter indicates that the two men had met previously, that Walters would have known who had sent the letter and knew where Clarke lived. In 1874 Walters proved to have no useful information on the Stannard’s Mill case, but Clarke would soon be pursuing Walters for other reasons: a fraudulent betting scheme which went beyond anything that Clarke had encountered before.

  Towards the end of 1874, large advertisements started appearing in national and provincial newspapers in Russia and several European countries for a ‘General Society for Assurance against Losses on the Turf’. The advertisements promoted the idea that the way to make money on horse racing was to bet on runners at the smaller race meetings in Britain, and that investors would be guaranteed a high return if they placed their bets through the Society offices. The advertisements claimed that the system was guaranteed to beat the book and promised to pay £1,000 to anyone who could prove that an investor in the Society had incurred any loss. The advertisements also highlighted that the Society had a substantial number of influential and titled office holders as directors. Individuals were invited to send their remittances to named offices in London: William Osborne and Co., Sidney Clarke and Co. and S. Montague and Co. However, the originators of the scheme had no intention of fulfilling their promises by returning any ‘winnings’, because the offices were a front for a fraudu
lent operation that relied on significant ignorance of the British horse-racing scene and hence was focused on gullible foreigners.

  The Society started to receive money from overseas clients in October. During December, some of the ‘directors’ of the Society raised their concerns; they claimed to have known nothing of their apparent involvement in the scheme. By late December the post office had also become suspicious of the three offices, which were usually unmanned. As a consequence postal deliveries were stopped and the police were alerted. The Daily Telegraph, suspecting fraud, commented in a December editorial: ‘… is it not high time for the Metropolitan Police to make active enquiries respecting Mr William Osborne?’62

  As the Scotland Yard expert on betting cases, Clarke was the obvious choice to lead the enquiries. How soon he was involved is not entirely clear, but by 11 February Clarke had arrested William Henry Walters, 24, and Edward Murray, 30 (aka Edwin Murray).63 The initial charge on the arrest warrant was not for committing fraud, but for assaulting Daniel Portch, a friend of Captain Henry Berkeley who was one of the named directors of the Society. During several magistrate’s hearings at Clerkenwell Police Court in February and March 1875, the link between the assault charge and the ‘turf fraud’ became clear.

  As investigations got underway, it emerged that Captain Berkeley (a member of the betting club Tattersalls) and William Walters had been previously known to each other through horse-racing connections. Indeed, Walters had come to Berkeley’s aid with a loan to help him recover his membership of Tattersalls after Berkeley had been thrown out for defaulting on bets. In all probability, Berkeley had knowingly agreed to participate as a director in the turf fraud, but had felt obliged to deny this (albeit belatedly) when the Daily Telegraph started to expose the fraud in December 1874. If so, what followed later was effectively a falling out between thieves.