Whatever his motive and whoever he was, he escaped detection completely.
CHAPTER 4
The Murder of a Policeman, 1921
I saw a man who was acting suspiciously. I made a run for him and he fired three times and I fell down.
Gunnersbury Lane in south east Ealing had been a notorious haunt of highwaymen in the eighteenth century. A prime minister had been robbed there and it was here that Sixteen String Jack made his last heist in 1774 (chronicled in the author’s Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Ealing). It was still a dangerous place in the early twentieth century. One reason for this was the potentially rich pickings to be found in the locality. To the south of Gunnersbury Lane was Gunnersbury Park, which since the 1830s had been a country estate of 186 acres which was owned by the wealthy banking family, the Rothschilds, and in 1921 was home to the widowed Mrs Leopold Rothschild (Marie Perugia, 1863–1937). They also owned most of the land in the district too.
In the early hours of Wednesday 11 February, PC James Kelly of T division was on his beat, which extended along Gunnersbury Lane, from the Ealing end, as far as Acton Town underground station, which was on the District line. This part of Gunnersbury Lane was hardly built up at all, and consisted mainly of playing fields adjoining the road. There were also a few large houses; the so-called Manor House, rented by a Mr Leyman, who was then in Switzerland, and Gunnersbury Lodge, both of which were north of the road. To the south of the road was the Rothschild estate as mentioned above.
PC Kelly was 34 years old and resided on Elliott Road, Chiswick. Until recently he had lived and worked in south London. He had married in January 1921. At 9.45 pm, Inspector Williams of Chiswick had paraded the constables ready for the night beat. These included Kelly, who was assigned to the Gunnersbury Lane beat. The inspector then saw him at 10.40 near Thorneyhedge Road, when Kelly reported that all was well. At about 3.30 am, the constable had completed the outward march of his beat and was walking away from the railway station. He later recalled that he saw a man a few yards away from the station, whose conduct awoke his suspicions. Kelly followed him along the road and attempted to arrest him. He later said, ‘When I asked him what he was doing, the man hurried on.’ The man ran away and, blowing his whistle to summon help, Kelly gave chase.
Gunnersbury Park, 1930s. Paul Lang’s collection
His quarry then hid himself among the trees which lined the road. The next Kelly knew of him was when he sprang out on his approach and drew an automatic. This was at the junction of Gunnersbury Lane and Pope’s Lane. Three shots rang out and, at point blank range, they could not miss. Kelly fell to the ground, but not before he blew on his whistle again.
This incident must have taken place sufficiently near to the gates of Gunnersbury Park, because it was heard there and responded to by James Cleaver, who lived in Chiswick, and had been a private policeman-cum-watchman employed on the Rothschild estate for a few years. He was patrolling the grounds at night with Jim, his fox terrier. He heard the shots and the whistle and rushed to the source of these noises. He cannot have been far away, and was probably at the lodge gates, 220 yards from the scene of the shooting. On arrival, about two or three minutes later, he found Kelly’s assailant still on the scene. He later recalled:
Baron’s Pond and Gunnersbury Avenue, Acton, 1920s. Paul Lang’s collection
I saw a man just a few paces away from me – running. His distance from me was six or seven paces. He was dressed as a soldier. … He looked to me more like an officer or a sergeant major, than a private. … It was too dark to see his face.
Cleaver struck at him with his knobbed stick, which was his only weapon, and though the man ducked, he received a blow on the back of the neck. The man then turned his gun on Cleaver and fired once more, hitting his mark and the bullet passed through his target’s shoulder. Cleaver’s dog jumped into the fray, but was kicked and then shot at, though the bullet missed this time.
The unknown man fled westwards along Pope’s Lane. Cleaver had been unable to apprehend him, as he had a weak leg. He briefly went home to reassure his wife that all was well. All this commotion attracted additional people. The railway night signalman, Mr Freeland and his colleague, a signal repair man, had been in the signal box that night and had initially thought the shots were the firing of a motor cycle engine. However, when they heard more shots, they changed their minds and went to see James Mitchell, the stationmaster, who lived in a house near to the railway station. Once the three had gathered together, a number of policemen had arrived at the station. They then went to the nightwatchman’s hut.
Meanwhile, William Perryman, the nightwatchman, had been involved in the night’s events already. He later recalled:
I was on duty all night at the hut opposite Acton Town station. I came outside at 2.25 am and had a walk round. Everything was all right. At 3.28 I heard three shots and at 3.31 I heard three more, and within five or six minutes of the last lot of shots I saw a young man, clean shaven, about 30 respectably dressed, supporting a policeman who was staggering towards the hut with his head bent forward. The young man said ‘This fellow has been shot.’
Apparently the two men then took Kelly into the hut, took off his coat and helmet and gave him a drink of water. Yet when the other policemen arrived, headed by a sergeant on a bicycle, the young man disappeared. It later transpired that this man was Mr F Hones of South Ealing, a bus clerk, on his way home from Kilburn. Kelly was asked who shot him and he replied, ‘That bastard in the trench coat’. He was then taken, along with Cleaver, to Acton Cottage Hospital, which was further up Gunnersbury Lane, just south of Acton High Street. Cleaver was found by PC T Irvine, who had come from south Acton on hearing the shots. Cleaver told him, ‘I’m shot, and there’s one of your mates up the road who, I think, has also been shot.’ It was at the cottage hospital there that the divisional surgeon, Dr W A Rudd, attended them. He decided that two of the wounds were dangerous.
Kelly had been hit in the stomach, the chest and the left leg, whilst Cleaver was wounded by a bullet which passed through his shoulder. Most of that morning was spent by Rudd operating on Kelly in order to remove the bullets and his condition was very serious indeed. Later that day he was sent to St Thomas’s Hospital, being admitted at 5 pm. It was thought that he might need the transfusion of ten pints of blood, which ten of his fellow officers gladly provided, though it transpired this was not eventually necessary. The less badly hurt Cleaver was also seen to, but though suffering from loss of blood, he was not dangerously ill and so was sent home to recover, Rudd seeing him there.
Acton Cottage Hospital, c.1898. Paul Lang’s collection
The police combed the district for clues. The first discovery was that the office of the railway station had been broken into. The station had only one entrance from the main road. This was locked between one and four each morning and was barred by a pair of heavy steel expanding doors. However, the station had been broken into, with the steel doors’ lock being forced, and the interior cloakroom door had been tampered with. The handle of the booking office safe had also been broken, though no money had been taken, and a suitcase in the left luggage section had been ransacked. A workman’s suit was also found on the floor, though it had not necessarily been left by the burglar, who had probably only been on the premises for a few minutes. A Yale key had been used to try to open one of the doors, without success, and its broken remains were found there. The case, it transpired, had been deposited by two men on Monday, and they had not subsequently called for it. Ten mackintoshes had been taken and these were found in a brown canvas bag behind a recess near Gunnersbury House; probably dropped during the burglar’s flight from the two men he shot. His spoils had been very minimal at best.
Shortly after the shootings, a flat in the nearby Denehurst Gardens was found to have been broken into. Jewellery from Mrs Lindop, wife of the occupant, had been taken. A man seen loitering nearby fitted the above description of the thief.
The police also found a
screwdriver in the mud 600 yards west of Gunnersbury Lane, and a pair of pliers were located in a gully under a hedge. Whether these had any connection with the crime is another question. Spent cartridges were found at the scene of the shooting and one detective deduced that the bullets were made of nickel. A cap and a muffler were also found.
It is possible the guilty man was spotted later that morning. Robert Head, a conductor on the District line, reported that he was on a staff train at 4.20 am. Because he had heard of the robbery and shooting, he was on the alert. At Chiswick Park, the next station to the east, towards London, from Acton Town, he saw a man about 30 years old, five feet ten inches in height, and wearing a short khaki coat and a civilian cap. His boots were muddy. Head noticed him because he was not among the dozen or so regular passengers who were also there. He was sitting with his legs crossed, looking down and had no luggage. This stranger left at the next station, Hammersmith.
Another man also saw this suspect. He was a Mr Read, a Chiswick postman, who had arrived at Chiswick station at 4.20 and the gate was closed. When it was opened, Read was the first to enter. He was surprised to see a man already on the platform. He must have entered by climbing over the fence and up the embankment. Yet Read took little more notice of the man, and did not know of the robbery and shootings. He described the man thus: ‘He was wearing a trench-coat – and, I think, an ordinary cap. He kept one hand in his coat pocket. I can say nothing of his age, height and general appearance.’
Whether this man was the same as the one ‘with a big, sharp nose’, who had been seen loitering near the station on Monday, as reported by local shopkeepers, was impossible to know. One Miss Campbell, a tobacconist’s assistant, saw this man on the afternoon before the crime, staring hard at the booking office windows and loitering there for an hour. According to her, he was 24, wore a cap and a waterproof coat. Mr Bailey, a hairdresser, whose shop adjoined the station, also saw a man loitering nearby, and his description of the suspect matched that of Miss Campbell.
On the following day the police issued a description of the man they wanted, as given to them by the two injured policemen: ‘Age about 25, height 5ft. 9in. or 10 in., clean shaven, slim build; dress trench coat and cap; smart appearance, may have injury at back of neck, and suffering from dog bites on leg.’ Anyone who had such a man as a lodger, and who had been absent on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, was encouraged to alert this to the police.
The police also thought that an ironmonger might be able to assist them in finding who had bought the wire cutters. They certainly seemed to have a number of individual characteristics. They were six inches long and half an inch wide. On the hinge part was stamped ‘British make’. And ‘5/P’ was marked on the outside part. These may have been the seller’s private mark or a price mark. The screwdriver located had ‘L’ marked on its handle and also ‘B and S., L’.
Kelly had the three bullets removed from his body on the Wednesday evening. He was stated to be doing well, though the wound in his abdomen seemed serious. He had been able to give his colleagues a brief description of his attacker and a short account of events on that morning, but did not think he would know him again. Sir Neil MacReady, the Commissioner, visited him in hospital and gave him the force’s sympathy. His wife also visited him on the day of the shooting. Sir Charles Balance, a medical specialist, put him under his own direct charge, and was much troubled by Kelly’s heavy vomiting. On 22 February, Kelly died in hospital and so the case became one of murder. His funeral service was held at Westminster Cathedral, and the union and papal flags were at half mast on that occasion. About 1,000 of his colleagues, including MacReady, were present in what were ‘impressive scenes’.
Westminster Cathedral. Author’s collection
On Wednesday 24 March, the inquest was held at the Lambeth Coroner’s Court. Dr Robinson of St Thomas’s hospital explained that death was due to peritonitis, due to the bullet wounds, followed by gangrene. Evidence was given about the clues found and the description of the killer. The police had not been able to apprehend anyone for the crime, though enquiries were apparently continuing. The jury could only return a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.
Clearly, the man responsible for this fatal shooting had not initially intended to kill. Yet he was prepared for the possibility that he might have to do so. He was a burglar, who was well equipped and had first stolen items from the suitcases from the railway station, though whether there was anything taken other than the mackintoshes is impossible to know. It seems that the theft of the mackintoshes was a fairly unimportant one; perhaps something else was there – or was thought to be there. Possibly the man sought something that the two men who had deposited there. He then left and walked up Gunnersbury Lane. Was he planning to commit another burglary? Probably. Seeing a policeman, his plans might have been thwarted, so he decided to act with maximum force. After he had had his encounter with the two men, it seems he then went on to steal jewellery from the house in Denehurst Gardens. At some point, he discarded the items taken from the station as being of little or no value to him, as well as his burglary tools. It was Kelly’s ill luck that he came across the armed man on his beat. The killer may well have been the man who was seen at Chiswick station, on his return to the relative anonymity of London. The local press surmissed that he was an experienced local thief.
CHAPTER 5
The IRA Murders, 1921
Let all spies and traitors beware.
Most people are aware of the IRA terrorist campaign in London in the 1970s and 1980s, which claimed the lives of 56 people and injured hundreds more. Yet there were Irish bombings in London in the Victorian era. More importantly for this book, there was the campaign which took place by the IRA in London in the early 1920s. Why was this? The IRA had been formed in January 1919 by Michael Collins (1890–1922) to fight the British for a free and united republic of Ireland. Much of this bitter conflict took place in Ireland. However, the IRA decided to bring the struggle to the heart of the British Empire and attacked civilians in London in 1921, an aspect of the struggle not acknowledged in recent high-profile films such as Michael Collins and The Wind that Shakes the Barley.
On the Sunday morning of 3 April 1921, George Tyrell, a young caddie, was walking along the golf links at Ashford. He was doubtless surprised to see a man lying down on the grass there. Calling to another caddie, Tyrell said, ‘He’s dead.’ They called the police and in the mean time found four bullets on the road nearby which were later collected by the police. Dr Walker of Manor Road, Ashford, was quickly on the scene. He noted that the man had been dead for at least six hours. Dr Francis Thompson, the police surgeon, carried out the post mortem and noted the following wounds. There was a bullet wound on the right side of the body and two on the back. Thompson admitted that one of these could have been self-inflicted but the others could not have been. One bullet had been fired from within a few feet of the victim. There was also a white metal watch and chain, a white cigarette case and a diary, marked ‘London and Lancashire Insurance Company’, near the body. Initially the identity of the corpse was unknown. Arthur Howard, another caddie, found that near to the fourteenth bunker was a piece of paper which read ‘Let all spies and traitors beware! – IRA’.
A woman identified only as Frances told the court who the victim was. She said, ‘I identify the body as that of my cousin. He was 20 years of age and a clerk-book keeper.’ She had last seen him alive on the evening of Saturday 2 April, between 6.30 and 6.45.
The inquest was held on 6 April, but after identification and cause of death had been given, it was adjourned until 20 April. The police wanted to know more about the victim and issued the following description of him in order to help jog someone’s memory:
Age twenty one (looks older), height five feet eight or nine inches; complexion, pale; hair and slight moustache, dark brown; eyes grey; large prominent teeth, second tooth from the centre of the upper jaw missing, and the corresponding tooth on lower jaw. Dr
essed in blue serge suit; white soft collar, imitation gold safety pin therein, black tie with gold stripes, heliotrope shirt, yellow metal embossed sleeve links, brown mixture socks, black laced shoes, velvour hat, ‘Dulcis’ make inside.
It was learnt that the deceased, who went by the name of Stanton, among others, had attended an Irish dance at Kelvedon Hall, Kelvedon Road, Fulham, on the evening of Saturday 2 April. He was seen there at half past eight that evening, talking to two or three other men. Any further information was sorely needed.
The inquest was concluded on 20 April. It had since been learnt that the real name of the deceased was Vincent Fovarque. There were also grave security concerns about the inquest. Seven people involved in the inquiry, including jurymen, had been sent threatening letters. These letters declared that, if a certain verdict was reached, relatives of those people would be killed. The police took charge of the letters.
There were two principal witnesses at the inquest. One was Matthew Patrick Higgins, a young clerk, who had once served in the Irish Guards. From December 1920 until March 1921, he had been the secretary to the Irish Self Determination League, which was a body with links to the IRA. He revealed that Fovarque had introduced himself as Richard Stanton and had come to Kelvedon Hall in February 1921 for the Saturday dance there. Higgins had next seen him on 16 February at Fulham Town hall, during a meeting of the League. Finally, he recalled seeing him on the fatal evening of 2 April and recounted that, at about 8.15, Fovarque had been talking to some men in the outer lobby, but he did not know who they were, nor did he see them leave. He added that the deceased had lived in Chelsea and had not joined the League.
Unsolved London Murders Page 4