FDSD Islington

by John Eddleston

  It was, perhaps, those doubts over the medical evidence, which caused the jury, after a short deliberation, to file back into court and announce that they had found Sarah Sadler not guilty of manslaughter. She then walked free from court, possibly a very fortunate woman indeed.

  Chapter 11

  William Henry Clarke

  1863

  On the evening of Sunday 30 March 1862, at around 8.00pm, Susan Hunter took her three children to a prayer meting, close to their home. The meeting finished some time before 10.00pm, and as Susan walked home with her three daughters, the eldest, Charlotte, asked if they might have some sweets. Susan reached into her purse and brought out a half-penny. She then returned home, leaving her children at the bottom of Greenman’s Lane.

  Charlotte Hunter took her two sisters, the youngest of whom she carried in her arms, to a sweetshop, where she purchased some sugar sticks. The children then crossed back over the road, and sat down on a doorstep to enjoy their treat. It was then that a man approached them.

  The man spoke to Charlotte’s younger sister, Elizabeth Anne Hunter, who was seven years and eight months old. He asked her if she would post a letter for him, to an address in William Street, and said he would give her two pence if she agreed. It was Charlotte who replied on her sister’s behalf, saying that she must not go with the man. The man ignored this, took Elizabeth by the hand, and walked off down the street with her.

  Charlotte was most distressed with this and, scooping her youngest sister into her arms again, set off to follow the man who had taken Elizabeth away. Curiously, he walked towards William Street, and Charlotte could not help but wonder why the man had not posted his own letter, if he was actually heading in that direction. Then, as Charlotte reached the end of William Street itself, a sudden gust of wind took her hat off. By the time she had managed to retrieve it, the man, and Elizabeth, had vanished.

  A most tearful Charlotte returned home, and told her mother and father what had happened. They went out to look for Elizabeth and, when they could not find her, reported her missing to the police. A search was made, but no trace of either Elizabeth, or the man who had taken her, could be found. The reports in the newspapers grew fewer and fewer, and the police investigation was scaled down. Elizabeth Hunter had, seemingly, vanished from the face of the earth.

  Time passed, and it was not until over a year later, on 6 July 1863, that a rather nervous Charles Martin walked into the police station, and told a very strange story indeed.

  Martin explained that he had heard two men, William Cope and William Westmacott, having a curious conversation together. Something about a skull was mentioned so later, when Cope was alone, Martin asked him what he had been discussing. It was then that Cope informed Martin that they had been talking about an event that had taken place at work, some eight or nine months previously.

  Cope, Westmacott and Martin had all worked at a nursery, on New North Road, as had another man, a youth named Samuel Strafford. One day, Strafford had been raking over a bed of soil, when he had unearthed a human skull. Strafford had taken this information to the owner of the nursery, one George Rowe. Rowe’s reaction had been strange, to say the least. He had ordered Strafford to rebury the skull and say nothing about it.

  Having listened to this story, Inspector Wisemen ordered two constables to go to the nursery, and make an examination of the flowerbed themselves. Some bones were indeed found but, when these were subject to analysis, they were found to belong to a dog. Strafford, however, persisted in his story so the search was renewed. On the second visit, a more careful search of the bed was made and an almost complete human skeleton was recovered. The bones, it was clear, belonged to a female child, aged about eight years old.

  It was impossible to positively identify the skeleton but, it seemed reasonable to assume that the bones belonged to Elizabeth Anne Hunter. She was the right age, and she had been the only child to have disappeared in the immediate area. The problem now, was who was responsible for her death?

  In fact, the name of a possible suspect, was immediately passed on to the police. George Rowe, who was not, rather curiously, questioned in depth about why he might have wished to conceal a human skull found on his premises, told the police that at the time Elizabeth had been abducted, he had employed a young man named William Henry Clarke. Further, Rowe knew for a fact, that seventeen-year-old Clarke, had a predilection for young girls, and had already assaulted two by the time Elizabeth vanished. As a result of that information, Clarke was arrested on 7 July 1863, the day after the skeleton had been found.

  In effect, Clarke was tried for murder by the coroner. The inquest, which met three times at the Florence Tavern, on Florence Street, off Upper Street, had to determine if the skeleton was that of Elizabeth Hunter, if she had been murdered, and if there was enough evidence against Clarke to send him for trial.

  Charlotte Hunter told the court of her sister’s disappearance on 30 March, the previous year. That night had been a particularly wet, windy and misty one, and it had been deduced that visibility was around fifty yards, at best. When Charlotte described, using a map produced by the court, where she had been, and where her sister and the man had been, at the time she had last seen her, the distance was shown to be eighty-four yards. Of more import, however, was the fact that Charlotte did not think that the man who led Elizabeth away, was the man in the court: William Clarke.

  The behaviour, in court, of George Rowe, was most unusual. Asked to give some personal details about himself, Rowe would only admit that he did not use his real name, and had not done so for a number of years. He refused to give his real name, or to say anything about his past. He was not pressed on what, if anything, he might be trying to hide. He was questioned only about Clarke.

  Rowe confirmed that at the time of Elizabeth’s disappearance, he had lodged at 5 Oxford Street, Islington. Clarke, who he employed, had also lodged at the house, the landlady being Charlotte Jennings. Clarke held the keys to the nursery, and it was his job to be there first each morning, and light the fires in the offices and greenhouses.

  Rowe seemed to have a particular memory of the night of 30 March, the night Elizabeth Hunter was taken. Rowe claimed that this was because he had suffered a rather bad illness in mid-March, and was only just recovering at the end of the month. He recalled one night in particular, which he was certain was 30 March itself. On that night, he had told his landlady that if Clarke had not returned home by 10.00pm, then he must be refused admittance for the night. Clarke had indeed returned late, closer to 11.00pm, and, at Rowe’s instructions, Mrs Jennings had refused to let him in. The following morning, Clarke had told Rowe, and his workmates, that he had gone back to the nursery and slept in the greenhouse. It was the same place that the skeleton had been found.

  In the final part of his evidence, Rowe said that he knew of two previous occasions, where Clarke had assaulted young girls. In one of the cases, the mother of the child had made a complaint to him, and Rowe had spoken to Clarke about it. He had told Clarke that if he did not admit what he had done, then the mother would make a formal complaint to the police and Clarke would be arrested and charged. If, however, he signed a confession, then she would not proceed with the matter. Clarke had, rather reluctantly, admitted the offence and signed a paper to that effect.

  Asked if he had any questions of this witness, Clarke began by trying to probe some of George Rowe’s secrets. Clarke demanded to know if his real name were George Nicholls Simmons but Rowe refused to answer. Clarke then asked if it were true that he had once been the town clerk at Truro. Again, Rowe refused to answer and at that point, the coroner ordered that this line of questioning was not relevant to the present inquiry.

  Charles Martin told the court about the conversation he had overheard between Westmacott and Cope. He also said, that he had been informed that the reason Mr Rowe had given for not reporting the matter to the police, was that he felt that it might give the nursery a bad name.

  William Cope testi
fied that he had been talking to Westmacott, about the finding of a skull, by a boy named Strafford. He had not known that the flowerbed held a full human skeleton. The man he had been talking to, William Westmacott, confirmed the conversation, and said he had been present when Mr Rowe ordered it to be reburied.

  Charlotte Jennings did testify that there had been a night, towards the end of March 1862, when Clarke had been refused admission to his lodgings, on Rowe’s instructions. She was, however, unable to confirm that it had been the 30th. She too had been told, the following morning, that Clarke said he had slept in the greenhouse. She did not explain why Mr Rowe, who was only another lodger, should be giving her instructions as to who she should allow in the house, and who she should turn away.

  An important witness would have been Samuel Strafford, the young man who had raked up the skull in the first place. Since that time, however, he had left the nursery, and had gone to live in Canada. He was somewhere in the wilderness, and even his own family had no idea where he was. The court was unable to contact him.

  Further bad luck came with the evidence of sixteen-year-old Thomas Shrosbee. At the time Elizabeth had been taken, she had been wearing a rather distinctive pair of golden earrings. One of the pair was a good deal wider than the other, and these earrings had not been found with the skeleton. When details of those earrings were published in the newspapers, Thomas’s father, William Shrosbee, had come forward to speak to the police.

  William explained that his son had a pair of earrings, which fitted the description of the missing pair. Thomas worked in Church Street, Shoreditch, and in April 1863, he had come home with the earrings, which he had purchased from a man, for 3d. Those earrings were now produced in court, and although Susan Hunter, the missing girl’s mother, could not be one hundred per cent sure that they were Elizabeth’s, she did describe them as almost identical.

  Shortly before the skeleton had been found, Thomas had fallen ill and been taken to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He had been interviewed there and said, to the police, that he would be able to make a positive identification of the man who sold the earrings to him. Unfortunately, since that time, Thomas’s condition had worsened and he had since died. Whilst it was true that the description he had given, matched Clarke, it was so vague that it also matched another dozen men in the courtroom.

  Another promising lead came from William Taylor. He had come forward at the time Elizabeth had been taken, and was now called to give his evidence in court. He said that he had been close to the nursery at around 10.00pm on 30 March 1862, when he had seen a young man, with a young girl. As Taylor passed them on the opposite side of the street, the man scooped the little girl up into his arms and walked on, towards the nursery. Taylor too, believed that he could positively identify the man he had seen. Asked to look around the court to see if the man was there, Taylor failed to pick out Clarke, or indeed anyone else.

  William Clarke was now asked to take the stand and give his own account of things. Turning to the night of 30 March 1862, Clarke agreed that this had been the night that he had been locked out of his lodgings. He then called two witnesses, to prove that he had not slept in the greenhouse where the skeleton was later discovered.

  The first of those witnesses was Clarke’s mother, Sophia. She now lived in Lever Street, but at the time, had lived at 4 Ashby Street. She told the court, that her son had arrived at her house on the last Sunday in March, complaining that his landlady would not let him into his lodgings. He stayed with her that night.

  It might be expected, that a mother would, perhaps, lie to protect her son, but the second witness, Maria Lee, was nothing more than a family acquaintance. She had called at Mrs Clarke’s early on the evening of 30 March, and the door had been opened by William. Maria had stayed for some hours, and William was at home all that time.

  In a further effort to convince the jury that Clarke was some kind of sexual pervert, the two girls he was supposed to have assaulted, were then called to give their evidence. The first of these, Mary Ann Baxter, said that she was now thirteen, but had been twelve at the time Clarke had attacked her. He had offered her some money to take a letter to William Street but instead had taken her into the greenhouse at the nursery. There he had touched her lower legs and placed a handkerchief over her face but, when she screamed, he let her go. It was Mary’s mother who later had made a complaint to Mr Rowe.

  The second girl, Mary Ann Lambert, said that Clarke had gone a little further. He had placed his hand up her clothing, onto her thigh. She had not made a complaint to the police, but had told her mother what had happened.

  Having heard all the evidence, the jury decided that there was not sufficient evidence to send Clarke for trial on a charge of murder. They returned a verdict that the skeleton was that of Elizabeth Hunter, and that she had been murdered by a person or persons unknown. It was not, however, the end of Clarke’s ordeal. He was remanded in custody on a charge of sexually assaulting the two young girls.

  By the time he appeared at the Old Bailey to answer those charges, on 17 August, a third charge had been added. Now it was claimed that he had also sexually assaulted a girl named Sophia Allen. Despite his denials, the jury found him guilty of assaulting Mary Ann Baxter and Mary Ann Lambert, but not guilty of the assault upon Sophia Allen. For those two offences, Clarke was jailed for two years.

  Was Clarke responsible for the death of Elizabeth Hunter? It seemed clear that the killer, whoever he was, seemed to have a modus operandi which involved young girls posting a letter for him, in William Street, and the two girls who said that Clarke sexually assaulted them, both said that he had used that phrase to entice them. However, one must not forget the strange behaviour of George Rowe who did not wish his past to be exposed, and who had simply hidden the discovery of a human skull on his property.

  Research shows that George Rowe was, almost certainly, the man Clarke named: George Nicholls Simmons. George Simmons had been elected town clerk of Truro on 20 October 1837, when he was twenty-six-years-old, and eventually resigned in November 1859. His age, at that time, showed that he was born in 1811.

  In August 1854, Simmonds, who was also a qualfied solicitor, acted as the corporation’s representative in a dispute with a Mr Baynard, over who owned the soil in the river at Truro. When Simmonds finally submitted his bill, the legal costs came to £1,176, a considerable sum (worth over £50,000 today), and the council argued that they should not have to pay such a sum, and asked him to explain the figure. The matter rumbled on for a number of years with claim and counter claim being made. This led to animosity between Simmonds, and certain councillors, and may well have led to his resignation five years later, and his leaving of Cornwall, for London.

  Further research shows that George Nicholls Simmonds, the only example of such a name, died in Islington, in the early part of 1874, when he was aged sixty-four, which would agree with a date of birth in either 1810 or 1811. That is too much for coincidence, and seems to indicate that Rowe and Simmonds were one and the same. It does not, however, explain why he should be so worried about hiding his past, unless there were those, in Truro, who were still looking for monies to be repaid.

  Chapter 12

  Charles Frederick Bricknell

  1864

  Wednesday 8 June 1864 had been a busy night at the Lion Tavern in North Road, at the New Metropolitan Cattle Market. Now, at around 11.15pm, the last customers were drinking up, and some of the staff were cleaning the various rooms.

  Henry Keeble, the nephew of the landlord, was in the bar when a loud, long, blood-curdling scream rang out. The pitiful sound had come from upstairs, and Henry ran off to see what the problem was. He had only gone up a few of the stairs when he met Charles Frederick Bricknell coming down, a bloody knife in his hand. Bricknell looked at Keeble, and in a soft, gentle voice said: ‘I ve done it Mr Henry. I have killed her. Take the knife.’ As Keeble took the weapon from Bricknell, and seized him in case he should try to escape, he could not help but see, on
the landing at the top if the stairs, the body of Jane Geary, one of the housemaids. Keeble then escorted Bricknell down to the bar, where he handed him over to a customer whilst he ran off to fetch the doctor and a policeman.

  It was 11.30pm when Constable George Govers arrived at the Lion Tavern. By now, Bricknell was at the front of the bar, being guarded by other members of staff. He was handed over to Govers, and told that he would be arrested. He immediately volunteered: ‘I will tell you all about it.’ Constable Govers, quite correctly, cautioned his prisoner, that anything he said would be taken down and might be used in evidence. After listening carefully to the caution, Bricknell merely commented: ‘She is the only girl I ever loved; and poor girl, she has got it, and I hope she will die.’

  Dr George Tate was already in attendance, and at that moment he came down the stairs to announce that Jane Geary was dead. Upon hearing this, Bricknell remarked: ‘I would rather she were dead than anyone else should have her.’ He was then escorted to the police station, where he was charged with murder.

  Bricknell appeared at the Old Bailey on 11 July 1864. The case for the Crown was led by Mr Giffard, who was assisted by Mr Rowden. Bricknell’s defence was detailed by Mr Sleigh, who wished to argue that this was a case of manslaughter, not murder.