The Real Sherlock Holmes

by Angela Buckley

  Since 1828, the law had considered sexual relations with a child under 10 a ‘felony’ and with a child between 10 and 12, a ‘misdemeanour’. The crime of indecent assault included ‘attempted carnal knowledge’ with anyone under the age of 12. Detective Caminada uncovered a scandalous crime of this nature, committed by a prominent and upstanding member of society.

  A young boy was on an errand from the warehouse where he worked, when he met a man near the Manchester Royal Infirmary. The older man engaged him in conversation and asked him to accompany him down one of the adjoining back streets, but the boy refused because he was keen to return to work. The man followed the child back to the factory, where he asked for his name. Some days later the boy received a message through the post saying,

  Dear John, meet me tonight at 7.30 at the corner of Ardwick Green, opposite Rusholme-road. You will remember that I met you ten or twelve days ago in Mosley-street. You can bring your friend with you.

  The boy took the letter straight to Caminada, who instructed him to meet the man at the appointed time. At a quarter past seven, the boy was standing ready at the meeting place when, 15 minutes later, the man arrived. He led the boy through several streets to a dark passage, where he presented him with a gold pencil case. A short while later Caminada appeared from the shadows and caught the man in the act of indecently exposing himself. As he arrested him, the man tried to bribe the detective with the offer of a sovereign and when his first attempt failed, he attacked Caminada with a thick walking stick. Caminada defended himself against his tall and powerful assailant as well as he could until assistance arrived, breaking his police staff in the fight. The prisoner was finally overpowered by five men and taken to the police station.

  It transpired that the perpetrator of this shocking crime was a magistrate from Cheshire. He admitted the assault on Caminada, but denied all charges of indecency. On the other side of the bench for a change, he was found guilty and fined £20 for assaulting a police officer, £5 for the assault of a witness and just £2 for indecent exposure. Clearly the magistrate had considered himself to be above the law.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Anarchists of Ardwick Green

  (September 1893)

  In the wake of the Industrial Revolution the people of Manchester played a radical role in the politics of protest. Home to trade unionism, the Anti-Corn Law League and Chartism, the city experienced demonstrations, campaigns and rioting throughout the nineteenth century. Detective Caminada was called upon many times to protect the general public, especially when the anarchists took to the streets in the 1890s.

  In 1892 Caminada masterminded a successful operation to maintain order at the annual May Day demonstrations. The procession, comprising some 20,000 participants, banners and brass bands ended in Alexandra Park, where it was estimated that as many as 100,000 people gathered to hear speakers from political organisations and societies. Common themes for discussion were the eight-hour working day, adult suffrage and the formation of an independent labour party. Caminada and his 300 officers kept the peace and, according to the Manchester Weekly Times: ‘The utmost order and decorum were maintained’.

  However, operations did not always run so smoothly for the detective and he often had to defend himself against physical attacks, as well as slurs on his reputation. The following year he became embroiled in a bitter struggle with a local anarchist group, who vehemently defended their right to freedom of speech and resisted all Caminada’s attempts to disperse them.

  In September 1893 the Reverend Canon Nunn, rector of St Thomas’s Church on the edge of Ardwick Green, lodged a complaint about the Manchester Anarchist Group, which held open-air meetings every Sunday on the green. Their soapbox speeches caused an obstruction on the pavements and subjected his flock to strong language, as they made their way home after the service. Chief Constable Malcolm Wood negotiated with the demonstrators, suggesting that they use Stevenson Square, a popular meeting place for speakers close to the city centre, or one of the police drill yards instead of Ardwick Green, which was a public park. The anarchists refused and persisted in meeting at their chosen spot.

  A month later Detective Caminada accompanied the chief constable to the weekly gathering of the Manchester Anarchist Group. The first speaker was Charles Pellier, a Belgian, who mounted a chair to address the crowd of several hundred people. As his speech was of a ‘revolutionary character’, the chief constable asked Caminada to send Pellier a message that he wished to speak with him. Pellier agreed to step down, reluctant to get into trouble with the police because he had a wife and family. After advising his comrades to disperse, he walked away. The next person to take the chair was a young man named Alfred Barton. He was pulled down immediately by the police, only to be replaced by Patrick McCabe, a mechanic.

  When McCabe was also dragged from his stand, there was a general rush of people at the handful of police officers in attendance. Barton grabbed the chair and struck a blow at Detective Caminada, hitting him violently in the chest, while someone else delivered a punch to Caminada’s head, knocking off his hat. The unarmed detective struck out with his umbrella to defend himself. He was spared further injury but his umbrella broke in the fray. The police arrested four men, including Henry Burrows, a 19-year-old clerk, who was overheard remarking: ‘If I had a revolver I would blow the damned policeman’s brains out’.

  The following day the prisoners appeared before the magistrate. The public gallery was full of friends and supporters of the defendants. In the dock beside Burrows, were Patrick McCabe aged 20; William Haughton, a pattern maker, also 20; and Ernest Stockton, an engineer aged 19. The hearing was interspersed with heckling, shouting and general chaos, as the defendants argued that they had been refused their right to freedom of speech. Haughton complained that they had been already tried and condemned in the press and Burrows accused the police of lying. The stipendiary, Mr Headlam, allowed the defendants’ friends to testify, but eventually his patience ran out amid the derisive laughter and hissing, and he cleared the court.

  Despite repeated orders for calm, the rest of the hearing was noisy and chaotic as the prisoners cross-examined the witnesses in a loud and insolent manner. Haughton remarked that Caminada, like all policemen, had a bad memory. He informed the bench that he weighed just 6 stone 5 pounds and posed no physical threat, to which Caminada retorted that Haughton weighed a good deal more in cheek. Despite further scenes of uproar, all the evidence was given and the defendants were fined 21 shillings and costs. The magistrate also ordered them to pay for the damage to Detective Caminada’s umbrella. On hearing the verdict, one of the prisoners raised a cry of ‘Hurrah for Anarchy!’ and as Alfred Barton left the court, he shouted, ‘To hell with law and order’. He was immediately re-arrested and Mr Headlam bound him over to keep the peace for six months.

  The first ever prosecution of anarchists in Manchester was immortalised in a ballad about Caminada and his ‘gamp’ (umbrella). Sung to the tune of ‘Monte Carlo’, ‘The Scamp who Broke his Gamp at Ardwick Green’ recounts the events in seditious and irreverent detail:

  And he walks about the street,

  With an independent air,

  The people all do swear,

  He is a detective rare,

  For he can lie,

  And none can vie-

  In the list of scamps, none stands so high

  As the D (detective) who broke his gamp at Ardwick Green, O.

  But the time is coming quickly when Cam will repent

  Of having tried his game

  The Anarchists to lame,

  Or he and his damned crew will to that warm land be sent,

  And never trouble honest folk again.

  And he walks along the court,

  With a hanging vicious air,

  The people will declare,

  Oh! What an awful scare.

  And they will cry,

  Oh! Let him die,

  And deep down in the gutter lie

  The D who
broke his gamp at Ardwick Green, O.

  One of the regular anarchist speakers, taxidermist Patrick John Kelly, likened the umbrella incident to the unimaginable possibility of the government charging the Featherstone miners in Pontefract for the bullets with which they were shot during the strike earlier that year. He was arrested and fined for his comments. Undeterred, the anarchists continued to meet every Sunday morning on Ardwick Green to share their political views. Through the distribution of handbills, and perhaps also due to the recent publicity stirred by the court case, they encouraged more spectators and the meetings swelled in size, much to the displeasure of local residents.

  During the next two months there was a succession of arrests and fines, as the defiant anarchists battled with police for dominance. Crowds of three to four thousand onlookers gathered each week and local tavern owners opened their bars, enjoying a roaring trade. People listened to speakers such as James Coates, a lithographic printer, who delivered a vitriolic speech denigrating Canon Nunn and Detective Caminada for interfering with the anarchists’ right to express their views. The numbers of arrests increased exponentially.

  On 5 November 21-year-old mechanic James Birch mounted the rostrum, waving a rolled up newspaper as a baton. His speech came to an abrupt end, when a number of youths let off fireworks into the crowd, accompanied by the cry, ‘Duck him in the horse trough’. The police rescued Birch from his watery fate, and promptly arrested him. Two days later, when anarchist Santiago Salvador detonated two bombs in the Liceu Theatre, Barcelona, killing 22 people, the meetings in Manchester took a more serious turn. At the following meeting Herbert Stockton, another regular speaker and relative of the anarchist arrested during the umbrella incident, declared that they were determined to hold meetings, in spite of opponents such as Canon Nunn. After his arrest he was overheard discussing with a comrade that they should resort to extreme measures, as in Spain. Later in court Stockton said that he had been joking and refused to pay the customary fine, opting to go to prison instead. Others followed suit, choosing imprisonment over fines, and the deadlock held fast.

  By the beginning of December, public interest was waning and the Sunday meetings were less well attended. In the wake of the Barcelona bombings financial support for the group had also dwindled. No one appeared on Christmas Eve, which Caminada commented was because ‘none of them were inclined to eat their Christmas dinner in the police station’. On the last Sunday of 1893, the final meeting of the Manchester Anarchist Group took place on Ardwick Green; after a battle of three months the police and local residents were allowed to enjoy their Sundays in peace at last.

  However, Detective Caminada soon became involved in another battle for free speech, which threatened not only his integrity as a police officer, but also his allegiance to his faith.

  A meeting was planned by the Protestant Alliance at the YMCA Hall in central Manchester, during which ex-Roman Catholic priest Joseph Slattery would deliver a speech in opposition to ‘Romish doctrines and practices’. As the date for the meeting approached, the secretary of the Catholic Truth Society published an article in the Roman Catholic newspaper The Monitor and Catholic Standard and Ransomer, suggesting that Slattery was known for intemperance, and his lectures had caused serious rioting in America.

  A few days later, leaflets flooded the poorer quarters of the city and large posters announced the forthcoming lecture at the YMCA by Slattery and his wife, who was rumoured to be an escaped nun. This caused considerable consternation amongst the city’s Catholics, especially in the Irish community. The police began to fear a major disturbance, which was exacerbated when another lecture given by an ex-Catholic priest at Central Hall led to some rowdy behaviour.

  After repeated warnings in the press and private letters, the Lord Mayor sent for the Deputy Chief Constable, Walter Fell Smith, who instructed Caminada to prevent the meeting from going ahead. The detective was troubled by the order: ‘This was a rather serious business for me, and I pointed out that, being a Catholic, I was likely to be accused of not acting impartially if I took any part in the matter’. He insisted on a special resolution from the watch committee or a written authority from the lord mayor, before he would take matters further.

  On the day of the meeting, Caminada received the necessary papers and asked the stipendiary magistrate to clarify the extent of police powers to close public meetings. The judiciary confirmed that the police had no such power. Caminada reported back to Deputy Chief Constable Fell Smith, who subsequently positioned his men near the venue and ordered Caminada to advise the secretary of the YMCA to cancel the meeting. At 6pm, when people began turning up at the hall they found a notice on the door announcing that the meeting had been suspended. A great furore broke out and local people complained bitterly about the partiality of the police, on the grounds of religious discrimination. As an openly devout Catholic, Detective Caminada soon became the main target for their invective.

  Shortly afterwards, the watch committee held an enquiry into the matter, during which the secretary of the YMCA denied that he had sought the interference of the police, and said that he had fully expected the meeting to take place. Deputy Chief Constable Fell Smith testified that Caminada had acted entirely without his knowledge. The committee concluded that the result had been a ‘misunderstanding’ between Chief Inspector Caminada and the secretary, Mr Newett. This unfortunate event gave rise to further anti-Catholic feeling and the police were accused of being under the control of Irish officers. Debates raged in the press and Caminada was accused of promoting his interests as a Catholic above his role as a police officer.

  Throughout the uproar Detective Caminada defended his position, stating that he was simply doing his duty, in accordance with the deputy chief constable’s orders. When Fell Smith issued a private circular arguing that the action had been taken without his knowledge, Caminada was outraged and commented later in his memoirs: ‘Here, then, is a deliberate attempt of the Deputy chief constable to shift the blame off his own shoulders on to mine’. The city council later exonerated Caminada, but the detective was hurt by his superior’s apparent betrayal. His relationship with Fell Smith never recovered and it would haunt him for the rest of his career.

  Although the Slattery affair eventually died down, Detective Caminada was deeply agitated by the accusations levelled against him. A working class man of Irish extraction, this was one of the few occasions about which he was moved to share his own political views and feelings. Whilst he was not a supporter of anarchism, or even socialism, Caminada sympathised with those who advocated equality for all, as he was well aware of how difficult it was for a manual worker to survive on a weekly salary of 18 shillings, with high rents and food prices. In his view the real culprits were the owners of the mills and factories: ‘Firms like these hold labour in their hands and squeeze out the heart’s blood of the people’.

  His real pet hate, however, were the ‘middle-class do-gooders’ and ‘feather-brained zealots’ who promoted societies for the greater good and ‘moral progress’ of others: ‘One society is for putting out our pipes, another is for cutting off our beer, and a third regards beef as a source of evil’. In his memoirs he railed against the hypocrisy of the do-gooders’ support for the right to free speech, at the same time as imposing limitations on the social life of ordinary working people, lest it divert them from their everyday task of manual labour. He wrote: ‘if they could, they would have shut him (the working man) off from the free air of the country, and seal him up hermetically within the streets of his own grimy town’.

  Despite his own elevation in society, Detective Caminada never forgot his origins and he remained adamant in his criticism of those who looked down, with thinly-disguised scorn, on the more unfortunate inhabitants of the city.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Blackley Mystery and other Suspicious Deaths

  (November 1893)

  During the Bank Holiday weekend in August 1893, three young brothers were playing in the woo
ds at Dark Hole Clough, in Blackley, near Manchester. Whilst they were hunting for blackberries it began to rain and the boys took shelter under the trees. From their refuge Alfred Shorrocks, aged 12, spotted what he thought was a red flower. On closer inspection he found that it was a parcel wrapped in brown paper, partly hidden beneath some shrubs. When Alfred poked it with a stick the paper ripped to reveal a child’s cap. He opened the parcel and, to his horror, discovered the body of a baby boy.

  The lads raced to a nearby cottage and alerted the owner, William Henry Birch, who accompanied them back to the woods. After examining the infant to check that he was not breathing, Birch took the tiny corpse to a police mortuary, where police surgeon, Dr Rudovich Young, examined the body. The doctor estimated that the well-nourished child had been dead for four to six days. There were no signs of violence on the body and the cause of death was asphyxia, probably due to convulsions. The coroner later returned a verdict of death by natural causes and the unidentified infant was buried in Manchester General Cemetery in Harpurhey.

  The case might have ended there had it not been for a hotel owner who contacted the police after reading about the incident in the local press. Mary Ann King was the landlady of the Central Temperance Hotel in New Bridge Street, near Victoria Railway Station. The report had reminded her of a young woman, who had been confined in her hotel in July. Giving her name as ‘Mrs Allen’ and claiming to be the wife of an army officer absent on duty, the heavily-pregnant woman had arrived two months prior to her child’s birth. Mrs King had arranged for a doctor to attend Mrs Allen while she waited for her confinement.

  The landlady added that Mrs Allen had met her ‘uncle’ every day at the station, right up until the birth of the child on 4 July. Afterwards she resumed the daily visits, leaving her son in the care of Mrs King. At the end of July Mrs Allen announced that she was moving back to her hometown of Kirkby Lonsdale, in Cumbria. After buying feeding bottles and brown paper, she left with the child the following day to catch the 11am train. Concerned, Mrs King followed the mother and child to the railway station, but when she arrived they had disappeared.