The Real Sherlock Holmes

by Angela Buckley

  And yet in spite of all its faults, its clumsiness of narrative, its exasperating allusiveness, its lack of imagination, its trite moralising, and its reckless attacks upon people who, whatever may be thought of their methods, are disinterestedly trying to do good – in spite of all these blemishes and some others, it is an interesting and even fascinating book.

  Despite these mixed reviews, the second volume sold well and was soon available in libraries throughout the country. It was particularly popular as a history of Manchester, and the publisher received many orders from other countries, including India, America and Belgium. Even the Lord Chief Justice was alleged to have read it. However, not everyone appreciated Caminada’s literary efforts and three years after its publication he was called upon to defend his work, when a judge criticised the detrimental impact of the book on would-be criminals.

  Two young men were charged with burglary in Chester and at the Assizes they claimed that they had been influenced by Caminada’s memoirs. The judge added his observations that the ‘undesirable character’ of the books might cause crime rather than act as a deterrent, and that copies ought to be removed from public libraries. The chairman of the Libraries’ Committee condemned the judge’s comments, reassuring him that careful selection of titles was rigorously maintained.

  In an interview with the Manchester Courier, Caminada defended his writing:

  Both bishops and judges have complimented me on the work, which is a clean and wholesome book. Editors of newspapers have seen it, Press notices have been published, and in no case up to the present has there been made the slightest complaint.

  Jerome Caminada’s second volume of memoirs may have been a turgid read, but they exposed a thrilling and well-guarded secret: since the early 1870s the British government had employed him, and other officers, in undercover missions. In the opening paragraphs of the book he divulged that he had tailed suspicious characters, decoded messages and infiltrated secret societies, not only at home but throughout America and continental Europe too. After whetting the appetite of his readers, he states that he is unable to disclose further information about his clandestine activities, in order to protect the identity of his collaborators and preserve national security: ‘Such information would also be welcomed and used by the enemies of society. Therefore my readers will see the necessity of keeping it a sealed book, and will excuse me accordingly’.

  Despite the need for confidentiality, he revealed the details of one case, when he was instructed to catch a military spy. In 1892 Chief Inspector Caminada received orders from the Solicitor of the Treasury to carry out surveillance of an ex-quartermaster, Edmund Holden, who was living in Hulme, Manchester. A surveyor, Holden had enlisted in the Royal Engineers in 1872 and served in Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta. He had enjoyed rapid promotion in his army career, rising to the rank of company sergeant-major and then quartermaster. In Malta he was in charge of the Draughtsmen’s Department and supervised work on the construction of batteries and fortresses on the island, including the Della Grazie Battery above the Grand Harbour.

  Holden left Malta in 1891 and returned to England, where he gained a post as Civil Foreman of Works in the Engineers’ Department at Parkhurst, Isle of Wight. A year later he was transferred to Curragh Camp, a military training centre in Ireland, from which he was dismissed after fraudulently misappropriating funds. Following his fall from grace, Holden was unable to find further employment in the army. In financial difficulties, he wrote to his former subordinate, Lance-Corporal Thomas McCartney, who was still serving in Malta, asking for information about gun placements in the forts and when McCartney handed the letter to his commanding officer, the warrant for Holden’s arrest was issued.

  Caminada shadowed the spy in Manchester and then to London, where he arrested him en route to a rendezvous with his contact in Paris. When the detective searched Holden, he found letters and documents in his bag, which, once he had decoded them, enabled him to build a picture of the fugitive’s treachery and double-dealing. Later Caminada found several letters at Holden’s home from his Parisian correspondent, some with money enclosed for trips to the French capital. One letter asked for tracings of the positions of guns and their capability on the island of Malta. On another occasion Holden had written to McCartney for up-to-date technical details to send to his foreign paymaster. Detective Caminada had conclusive proof that Holden had been selling information about the calibre and positions of arms to the French, which could have posed a threat to British security in the event of war.

  Edmund Holden, 42, was charged under the Official Secrets Act of 1889 with having attempted to procure Thomas McCartney to be guilty of a breach of official trust. He was found guilty and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for ‘a very bad and dangerous offence’. Detective Caminada had captured his spy: ‘Next to betraying one’s country into the hands of an enemy, there is no crime so abhorrent to the patriotic man as that of divulging the military secrets of one’s own people, and playing the spy for a rival power’. Throughout his career, Caminada played the role of spy himself in undercover missions for the Home Office, as he tracked first Fenians and later anarchists, but true to his word he never revealed the extent of his covert operations.

  In the early 1880s there was growing unrest amongst the working population. In the midst of a deep economic depression, socialist and anarchist groups called for economic and political reform, attracting the attention of the police. At the same time, Irish nationalism was gathering pace on the mainland and police officers were regularly shadowing suspects. The Criminal Investigation Department had been established in 1878, headed by Superintendent Frederick Adolphus ‘Dolly’ Williamson. When the Fenians launched the dynamite campaign, with the explosion at Salford Infantry Barracks in 1881, the detectives of Scotland Yard and their colleagues throughout the country began to gather intelligence in earnest.

  As the bombing of public buildings increased, the murder of Lord Cavendish and Thomas Burke in Dublin instigated the founding of the Irish Branch in March 1883. Under the supervision of Williamson, the Irish Branch (later known as the Special Branch) procured the services of other uniformed and plain-clothes officers to suppress acts of terrorism by tracking Fenian suspects, as they passed through Britain. They were particularly keen to recruit officers from an Irish Roman Catholic background and Detective Caminada fitted the profile perfectly.

  Dolly Williamson was the protégé of Detective Inspector Jonathan Whicher, famous for his investigation into the Road Hill House murder in 1860. Williamson rose through the ranks to the position of Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard in 1881 and was still in charge during the case of the ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders in the late 1880s. When the former Chief Superintendent of the Birmingham Force, James Black, died in 1926 his obituary revealed an interesting and previously unknown connection: the Western Daily Express printed that when Williamson was asked how many real detectives he knew, he replied, ‘I know only three: they are Black of Birmingham, Jerome Caminada of Manchester, and one of my own men’.

  It is likely, therefore, that Caminada worked directly for Williamson under the auspices of the Special Branch. The fact that his superior officer, Chief Constable Wood was commended by the Home Office reinforces the probability, although it is unclear exactly how Caminada earned Williamson’s respect. Further evidence is provided by the survival of two telegrams, now held in the Greater Manchester Police Museum and Archives, which were sent to Caminada from Wood whilst he was on special duty in Le Havre; one recalling him to Britain and the other instructing him to await further instructions from the Home Office.

  By 1901 Jerome Caminada was no longer undertaking secret missions for the British government but his ‘life of crowded adventure’, as alluded to in the Daily Mail, continued undiminished. In his roles as city councillor and private detective he would remain a frequent visitor to the law courts for the following decade – on both sides of the bench.

  Chapter Nineteen

 
‘The Garibaldi of Detectives’

  (1902–1914)

  Mr Caminada is still a comparatively young man full of vigour and energy.

  (Evening Telegraph, 7 January 1899)

  When Jerome Caminada retired at the age of 54, he continued to lead an active life, in the zealous and diligent manner that had characterised his 30-year-long police career. His commitment to his home city of Manchester remained as steadfast as ever and his fight to clean up the streets carried on unabated.

  In the early 1880s, when he and his wife were living in Old Trafford at the beginning of their marriage, Caminada had begun acquiring properties. In addition to the cottages and public house revealed to be in his ownership during the police scandals of the late 1890s, he had also bought land in Chorlton-on-Medlock, where he eventually settled with his family. By 1902 the ex-detective had acquired a considerable portfolio of property, an occupation that would take him into the courtroom several times, to protect his interests.

  Just after his resignation in January 1899, Caminada brought an action against a construction company for breach of contract. He had paid £1,750 (worth just over £160,000 today) for the building of four houses in Chorlton-on-Medlock. As agreed, when the work was completed he had paid the contractors in full, but shortly afterwards the plaster had started to blister.

  Using his knowledge of the law, Caminada sued the firm for damages. The defendants explained that they had used old bricks, with Caminada’s agreement, and this had caused the problem. At the hearing, despite concluding that the dispute could have been settled by a professional builder rather than an expensive court case, the judge awarded the former police officer damages of £75.

  By the early 1900s Caminada had added to his growing property business with the purchase of houses in Richmond Street in central Manchester, near to the Bridgewater Canal. The next time he appeared in court was to bring a suit against the proprietors of a warehouse, claiming that the unloading of their ‘lurries’ (horse drawn lorries) was causing an obstruction of the pavement for his tenants. The firm would place four men along the footpath, who threw parcels to each other from the lorry to the warehouse’s loading bay. Considering this to be very dangerous, Caminada cited the case of a gentleman having been struck by a parcel, which knocked off his hat. He further complained that sometimes two lines of men were formed and lorries backed up to the warehouse over the pavement. As usual, the experienced prosecutor won his case and the company incurred a fine.

  Despite his lucrative business interests, Caminada was not ready to relinquish his detective work and, in keeping with the contemporary trend amongst retired senior police officers, he established his own private inquiry agency.

  In The Sign of the Four (1890), Sherlock Holmes pronounced that he was the ‘only unofficial consulting detective’ in the country. In the realm of fiction, when police detectives and private inquiry agents failed to solve baffling cases, they turned to Holmes for help. In reality Jerome Caminada had no such recourse when he was working as a detective, either in the police or in his private practice. He had to rely on his own expert knowledge, exceptional memory and powers of deduction but as he would soon discover, this was more difficult outside the protection of the force.

  The latter years of the nineteenth century saw a rise in private detective agencies. Employed police officers often engaged in private work as a sideline and detectives set up their own agency after retiring. Former police detectives had the advantage of their contacts in the criminal justice system, the press and on the streets. Like Caminada they already had a considerable network of informers, as well as former colleagues inside the force, with whom they often collaborated, by taking on assignments that the police were less keen to pursue. At the height of Sherlock Holmes’s popularity, the worlds of fact and fiction merged more closely for Caminada, as he joined the ranks of private detectives. However, the reality was far less glamorous than life at 221b Baker Street.

  In April 1902 Caminada was back in court, but this time he was in the dock charged with trespass and assault. A ‘gentleman of very considerable position’, named Mr Tunnicliffe, engaged him in connection with a divorce proceeding brought by his wife, Elizabeth Maud Tunnicliffe. When the couple had married in December 1899, the groom enjoyed a high social position, but by contrast his bride ‘had not led an absolutely virtuous life’. Despite their apparent differences, the newly-weds settled near the University of Manchester, where they remained until their marriage failed in August 1901. After the split Elizabeth rented a small house with the financial support of two lodgers. She also employed a servant, Eliza Morgan.

  Later that year, Elizabeth Tunnicliffe filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery. In his defence, her estranged husband accused her of the same offence and employed Caminada to gather evidence. On the morning of 17 February 1902, Elizabeth’s servant, Eliza Morgan, left the house to buy some milk for coffee. While she was absent, a man named Stanton and a young solicitor’s clerk slipped in through the open door and made their way straight to the bedroom of one of the lodgers, named Mulliner. They threatened Mulliner, who had a previous conviction for larceny, and all three men left. When Eliza returned, she was about to rush upstairs to tell her mistress about the intrusion when there was a knock at the door.

  The two men had returned with Caminada and, pushing the young girl to one side, they ran up the stairs to Elizabeth Tunnicliffe’s bedroom, where they found her alone in her nightdress, lying on the bed. Apparently Caminada said, ‘Oh, you have just got out of the other bed’, intimating that she had been sleeping in Mulliner’s bed. She called him a liar, to which he replied, ‘Get up out of this: you are used to this kind of thing’. Unable to find evidence of adultery, Caminada and his associates left.

  Outraged by the intrusion, Mrs Tunnicliffe brought the action against Caminada for his behaviour towards her. During an adjournment in the hearing, the two parties reached a settlement and Elizabeth Tunnicliffe withdrew the case. However, during the prosecution, an interesting point was raised about the ex-police officer’s involvement in the case. The plaintiff’s solicitor had remarked that Caminada, as a private inquiry agent, had to undertake ‘irregular’ activities to gain evidence. He suggested that Caminada’s long experience in the police force had left him with little regard for the manner in which he conducted his private work: ‘the more zealous a gentleman was in that line the more difficult were very often the positions in which he found himself when doing work for the public’.

  The following year Caminada was back in court on similar charges. In July 1903, Sion Levy filed a suit of unlawful wounding against the detective, who had been acting on behalf of Levy’s former employer, Abdullah Elias, a wealthy ship merchant. The long running saga had begun a year earlier, when Levy had accused Elias of assault, while he was in his employ as a clerk. Elias and his colleague, Eliahoo Joseph, both originally from Baghdad, had explained that they had been forced to remove Levy from their property in a case of trespass. The jury had found for Levy and he had received damages.

  Abdullah Elias was a successful businessman and prominent member of the Jewish community in Manchester. During the case brought against him by his former employee, he had instructed Caminada to collect information about the plaintiff. It was during this work that Levy alleged that Caminada had entered his house and struck him a blow to the head with a piece of wood saying, ‘I will kill you before you can give evidence’. Once again, during the adjournment, Sion Levy withdrew his complaint. He was later convicted of conspiracy to give false evidence.

  As Detective Caminada discovered, the nature of private inquiries was much more ambiguous than the crimes investigated by the police, perhaps due to their often personal nature. The private detective was inextricably drawn into bitter divorces, complex relationships and vendettas, which may have been the reason why Caminada made the decision to launch a political career instead.

  In October 1907 Jerome Caminada presented himself for nomination as an Independen
t candidate, to represent the Openshaw Ward on the Manchester City Council. At the hustings in Whitworth Hall he vowed to stand for the ratepayers of Openshaw, especially in relation to the mismanagement of the Manchester Corporation. According to the Manchester Guardian, the meeting was ‘somewhat lively’ and Caminada was interrupted several times by the rowdy crowd. He stood his ground and the resolution was passed that he was a ‘fit and proper’ potential representative, even though ‘many hands were held up against it’. A Labour candidate, Joseph Bevir Williams, secretary of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union, was also selected.

  Openshaw is two miles east of Manchester, on the other side of the city from where Caminada lived. A manufacturing district, it had experienced a massive population explosion during the nineteenth century, with as many as 20,000 inhabitants during the later decades. Heavy industry had replaced the traditional cottage bleaching trade and it was the site of important engineering works, notably the gun-making factory of Armstrong Whitworth, a major arms supplier during the First World War. The district was also known for radical politics and was home to supporters of socialism and trade unionism.

  Strongly opposed to socialism, Jerome Caminada canvassed for votes as a trade unionist. Billing himself as a ‘practical man’ and a ‘friend and neighbour’, he pledged to use his pragmatism and no-nonsense attitude to gain the support of local residents. As reported in the Daily Despatch, Caminada was once the secretary of a trade union and during a public meeting, he was beset by socialists, who demanded his credentials. Under attack he produced a book confirming his membership of the trade union, which he triumphantly passed around the audience. At the election he won by a large majority and was duly appointed to take his seat on the Manchester City Council.

  For the following three years Caminada was actively involved in council business, as well as serving on several committees. His time as a city councillor was characterised by his criticism of the organisation of the police force and advocacy of economy in council spending.