Warwick
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Police Constable Woodward arrived a short time later and he and Sergeant Webb, after making inquiries, went over to the Lamp Tavern to arrest London. They found him asleep in his bed.
Mr Hickling, the police inspector, stated that, ‘there was a wound in Coates side the size of his hand and his shirt was set on fire, so that the muzzle of the gun must have been placed very near to him.’ Dr Tibbets, a surgeon, examined Coates after the shooting and said there were about two or three shots lodged in his back. It appeared that the gun had been fired while Coates had been standing sideways and that the shots had, fortunately, struck him obliquely. He went on to say that the gun must have been held at close range, as the flesh had also been burnt. Shots were also found inside the house, embedded in the table and the door to the house.
* * *
‘if you come out I will shoot you’
* * *
Bowling Green Street today; the Lamp Tavern would have been on the left.
The following Monday morning, London appeared at the Police Court charged with shooting William Coates with intent to murder, but William Coates failed to turn up at the court to give his evidence. His wounds had not been serious and he had disappeared. The police hadn’t been able to find him and Sergeant Webb said it appeared ‘he had been induced to leave the town for the day.’ The Bench issued a summons ordering Coates to attend the Police Court a week later and London was remanded for the week while the police continued their search for Coates. He eventually turned up unaware that there was a search party looking for him, saying that he had had to go away on business.
It seems strange that, having been shot, Coates would not have wanted to give his evidence in court. Had someone really induced him to leave town on that day? And why, when he did appear the next Monday to give evidence, was his statement so vague? He said he was visiting No. 10 and didn’t really remember what was said: ‘I had had a goodish drop of beer, and can’t tell what it was. There was a gun went off, but I didn’t see it, and I can’t tell who fired it. I should say some parts of the contents of that gun hit me. My shirt was burnt, but I can’t tell what did it. [sic]’
He said he remembered struggling with someone after the shot had been fired, but he didn’t know who it was at the time and that he had been told later that it was London. He said he had known London for years and they often had arguments when they had both been drinking, but he’d never heard London threaten to shoot him.
Police Constable Webb described Coates as having ‘a wife and family living on the Saltisford-Rock’, but London immediately shouted out, ‘That’s a lie, he lives in Monk Street.’ Webb was forced to agree that Coates did spend most of his time there.
The prosecutor, Mr Tibbetts, said it was clear from the witness statements that a shot had been fired and who had fired the gun, and asked that London should be committed to trial at the next assizes – the Bench agreed.
London appeared at the Winter Assizes on Wednesday, 6 December 1865 and pleaded not guilty to both charges of ‘shooting the gun with intent to murder’ and ‘shooting with intent to cause bodily harm’. He said he only hit Coates with the gun, and in the struggle which followed it had accidently gone off. When Coates was giving his evidence, London asked, ‘What business had you at number sixteen?’
In 1861, William Coates and his family lived in Castle Street. (ref: RG9/2225/9/11 held at Warwick Record Office)
‘You had been blackguarding Mrs Pearson, and I went to take her part,’ Coates answered.
The judge, in summing up, said that this case no longer came under the heading of capital crime, although it would have done so five years previously. London was found guilty of intent to cause bodily harm and was sentenced to penal servitude for eight years.
On Saturday, 16 April 1870, a young couple went out at about eight o’clock in the evening to visit Leamington Spa, a couple of miles away from their home, because the wife wanted to buy a new pair of boots.
A few hours later, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Police Constable Fletcher was standing on duty outside the police station when a man, accompanied by an older man, came up to him. The first man appeared agitated so Police Constable Fletcher inquired, ‘Well, what is it?’ The man said, ‘I have come to give myself up for the murder of my wife.’ Fletcher thought he was joking and said, ‘Oh go on with you; don’t come here with any of your folly.’ But the older man then said, ‘It’s quite right; he has thrown her into the canal, near the Leam Bridge on the old Leamington Road, and came to my house to change his clothes. What he has got on are my clothes, except his boots.’
The younger man was Thomas Chapman, a labourer of Union Buildings in Linen Street, Warwick, and the older man was his father. His wife was Ann Chapman.
Chapman was taken into the police station where Police Constables Elvins and Satchwell asked him again if what he was saying was true. Chapman burst into tears and confirmed that it was. Elvins took down the charge and cautioned Chapman that what he told them would be used against him as evidence. ‘I have murdered my wife and you will find her near the Leam Bridge,’ Chapman said. He told them that it was all through jealousy and that he didn’t believe their last child was his.
Fletcher, Elvins and Satchwell fetched some dragnets and went to the canal, searching the spot which Chapman had indicated. They saw that the towpath had been kicked up in several places, showing there had been a violent struggle near the edge of the water. After dragging the canal for an hour, Ann’s body was eventually brought to the surface. She was wearing no shoes, had no bonnet on her head and her dress was torn into shreds, suggesting that she had struggled desperately. Her shawl was twisted round her body and had a small rope attached to it. It seemed to the police that Chapman had tried to tie her hands to her body. As a show of respect for Ann’s practically naked body, the police found something to cover the body with before taking it to the Mattock and Spade public house in Mill Street to await the inquest.
The Warwick and Napton Canal leading from Leam Bridge.
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‘there had been a violent struggle’
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Thomas was aged twenty-seven and over the years had been employed in many different jobs. For a time he had worked for the British Gas Company, but would also go to Birmingham looking for work. He would spend many months working there. Sometimes, at harvest time, he would find employment in the fields.
Twenty-six-year-old Ann worked as a cleaner. She was employed by many respectable people, including a Mrs Ivens of Market Place. The couple had been married for five years and had had six children, three of which had died. Their eldest was now three years old, the middle child was two years old and there was a baby aged four months. Neighbours and friends were contradictory when describing the relationship between Thomas and Ann. Some said they were on ‘good terms’, but Thomas’ friends suggested that there was a degree of unhappiness between them; this was confirmed in the confession Thomas had made to the police.
Mill Street today. The Mattock and Spade public house is no longer there.
The case was brought before the Warwick Assizes on Tuesday, 19 July 1870 and reports described Thomas as appearing to be of a low intellect: ‘His hair was tumbled about in a wildly-disordered state. He was unshaven, and without a coat, neckerchief and shoes, and appeared mentally in a state of vacuity. He hung his head upon his chest, and when charged, took not the slightest notice of anything going on in court.’
The judge suggested that perhaps the case should first be tried as to the question of Chapman’s sanity. The first witness was Dr W.H. Parsey, the Medical Superintendent of the County Lunatic Asylum. He said that he had seen Chapman on four separate occasions in July, and during these visits he had come to the conclusion that he had been feigning insanity. When asked to look at the doctor, Chapman seemed to deliberately look anywhere rather than at the doctor. When asked if he had any pain he rubbed his head and it seemed he was trying to hide his face, which in the opinion of the doctor d
id not have the features of someone who was insane. On occasion, Chapman would sit grovelling on the floor, sometimes even sitting in his own urine; again as if he was acting a part.
The judge asked Dr Parsey, ‘In your judgement, is the prisoner in a fit state to plead to the charge against him?’ The answer was, ‘I believe so.’
Dr Thomas Thomson of Leamington said he had seen the prisoner on various days throughout June and July, and often noticed that Chapman appeared ill and depressed, ‘but he looked up in a manner of inquiry, which struck the witness at the time.’ On various visits, Dr Thomson asked Chapman numerous questions and the answer was always, ‘I don’t know,’ which made Dr Thomson also think that Chapman was acting. At one time the doctor went and stood quietly behind Chapman, and within a few minutes Chapman was turning his head to see what was going on; again a sign that he knew what he was doing.
Other witnesses included Mr John Mills Anderson, the governor of the gaol, and Mr Robert J. Nunn, the surgeon at the gaol. Their testimonies also suggested that Chapman was feigning insanity. After a few minutes of conferring, the jury decided that Chapman was of a sound state of mind and therefore was able to be tried in the normal way.
Chapman and his wife had lived with her parents and the first witness to be called forward was Ann’s father, Francis Dodson. He said they had seemed quite happy before they had left for Leamington on the 16th of April. Mr Dodson said the rope which Ann had been tied with had been taken from his garden; he had recognised it by its knots. Ann’s mother, Sarah, said that since the birth of their baby on 3 December the couple had quarrelled a good deal. Sarah made a comment regarding the baby – ‘and a very nice baby it was’ – which caused laughter in the court. Mr Bennett, the prosecutor, reprimanded her and told her to ‘say nothing but what I ask you’. Continuing to give evidence, Sarah stated that Chapman was convinced the baby wasn’t his because it had been born four days early and the dates didn’t add up as he thought they should.
Chapman’s father was next to give evidence. He said that he heard someone at his door in Friar’s Court at about one in the morning and found his son ‘standing there with his clothes all wet’.
‘What’s the matter?’ he had asked.
‘Oh, dear Ann is drowned against the bridge. We both fell in together, and I had hard work to save myself,’ Thomas replied. He noticed that his son looked wild and was ranting, making such comments as, ‘If I go into a public house I am charged with keeping other men’s children,’ and ‘I cannot go by the corners of the street for the men say they know as much about Ann as I do.’
Chapman’s statement was read out in court, in which he had said that the last child was not his and that it belonged to Charles Harris. He also claimed that even before leaving the house he had made up his mind to murder his wife. On the Saturday evening they had gone out and walked into Leamington, where they had had a pint of ale at Page’s public house. On their return he headed for the Emscote Bridge and said, ‘Come this way.’ Ann told him that she did not like going by the water but he persuaded her by telling her that they could walk as far as the Leam Bridge. It was while they were walking that he confided with Ann over his concern that their last child was not his. To his surprise she had laughed and said, ‘No, you scamp, none of them; I have deceived you a good while.’ He said it was in anger that he had pushed his wife into the canal and she had pulled him in with her. He felt she was going to drown him and he said he was up to his chin in water, but could just touch the bottom.
But that was Chapman’s story; there was no evidence that the children weren’t his, and there were no witnesses to say exactly what had happened on the towpath that night – no one saw or heard anything. The jury considered this a case of manslaughter and found Chapman guilty and sentenced him to a life of penal servitude.
On Saturday, 3 August 1878, Mr Justice Hawkins took his seat at the Summer Assizes for Warwick. His opening statement appeared in the Leamington Spa Courier the following Saturday:
The judge proceeded to dwell upon the facts in a charge against Charles Wiggins and George Harrison of having robbed Joseph Hyatt of sixteen shillings at Warwick, with violence, and expressed his strong disapproval of the way in which the police had interrogated the prisoners when they were taken into custody. Questions after questions were put to them, and the accused were thoroughly cross-examined, just in the same way as Counsel would cross-examine an adverse witness. No magistrate would ever dream of examining a prisoner in that way, nor would any judge do so; yet some of the police seemed to think, if they could get a prisoner into their custody, it was their duty to cross-examine him upon any subject which arose in their minds. He protested against such a mode of proceeding, looking upon evidence obtained in that sort of way with a good deal of jealousy and hoped that he should not find a repetition of it.
Charles Wiggins and George Harrison had committed ‘robbery with violence’ against an elderly man named Joseph Hyatt. But perhaps it was a case of the police desperately trying to find enough evidence to convict these habitual offenders.
George Harrison, aged seventeen, was born in 1858 and was first heard of in May 1868, when he and some other boys were charged with ‘driving and riding about the cows and calves on the Race Common’ on the afternoon of Sunday 31 May. All of the boys were given a caution and told that if they did it again their parents would have to pay the expenses. None of the parents were in the Police Court at the time and the prosecutor said that their parents should ensure that their children were sent to school, to which one of the lads shouted out that they did, but that day was a holiday!
Two years later George and his brother Henry were charged with stealing gooseberries from a garden at the bottom of West Street. George was sent to prison for fourteen days.
In March 1872, another name appeared in the local newspaper: ‘Charles Wiggins of Woodhouse Street, labourer, was charged by Mr G.H. Nelson with having on the 24 inst. stolen a piece of gelatine, value 1s, his property – the charge was not pressed, and the defendant was cautioned and discharged.’
The 1871 census shows Charles living at No. 7 Woodhouse Street with his father, also Charles, and other members of his family. He is listed as a labourer, aged seventeen. At the end of Woodhouse Street was Stand Street, and it is here, at No. 21, that George lived with his family. He is listed in the census as a gelatine worker. The only gelatine factory in Warwick was that of George Nelson & Co., and it was from here that Charles had stolen his piece of gelatine.
It has to be assumed that they must have been acquainted, as they lived so close together, and by 1875 they were drinking companions; they both reappear again, this time involved in the more serious crime of robbery with violence.
One Saturday night, on 31 July 1875, they were drinking in the Welch Harp public house in Smith Street with another youth named Thomas Richardson. Also drinking in that same establishment was an older man by the name of William Philpot. William was a bricklayer who was lodging at the Birmingham Arms, further along Smith Street. Earlier in the evening William had been good enough to buy the lads a quart of ale. By quarter past ten they had finished that one and asked, ‘Are you not going to stand another quart?’
Charles Wiggins appeared on the 1871 census. (ref: RG10/3200/14/23 held at Warwick Record Office)
‘No you are strangers to me,’ William replied. ‘I have paid for one. I cannot give you any more.’
With that, William left and went out into the yard. George, Charles and Thomas followed him out, and Thomas knocked him to the ground. Before William could get up the other two were holding him down. One was at his head, the other at his feet and as they held on to him Thomas searched his pockets. They knew he had a money bag on him because they had seen him get it out when he had paid for the drinks, and they knew there was money in it because he had been given change for the half-crown he had used to pay for their drinks. Thomas pulled out the bag from William’s pocket and found two sovereigns, another half-crown and a sixpenc
e. But Thomas wasn’t going to let him go until he was sure there was no money in any of his other pockets.
‘Let’s have the blooming lot; don’t let him get up till we do,’ he shouted.
A terrified William was crying out ‘Murder!’ and ‘Don’t take my life away!’ as they searched his pockets. William Hemmings, the landlord, went out when he heard the screams and found William lying on his back; the three men walking quickly back to the door. Thomas Midwinter and Henry Halford also heard the cries and rushed to help. They ran after the three men and caught them, and, to their surprise, the men actually agreed to go calmly back to the inn with them. The police were called for and a short time later, Police Constable Hunt arrived. Being quite dazed William could only identify Thomas, who was immediately arrested, and George and Charles went home. But by the next morning, after questioning William, the police were knocking on their doors in Stand Street and Woodhouse Street.
George Harrison appeared on the 1871 census. (ref: RG10/3200/24/44 held at Warwick Record Office)
* * *
‘Don’t take my life away!’
* * *
At their court appearance it was felt there wasn’t enough proof that they were the culprits, and the witnesses who were in the Welch Harp that night gave contradictory evidence as to what they heard and saw. All three men were acquitted and Thomas seems to have kept out of trouble from then on.