Bradish left the marital bed at about seven that morning and stepped out into the parade ground. Almost as soon as he had left, his wife, a tall, powerful, plain middle-aged woman, went next door to where her stepsister slept. With her she took one of her husband’s razors, which he kept in a drawer in their room.
Shortly afterwards, Sergeant Alexander Oates was crossing the parade ground. He later recalled:
I was going towards the quarters of Sergeant Major Bradish … when I saw Mrs Brandish come out from them very excited. She came up to me and said, ‘Come in Sergeant Oates; I have murdered my sister’. I observed at this time that the prisoner’s hands were covered with blood, and she went to the pump and washed them. Seeing her excited state, and knowing that her husband was not in his quarters, as I had observed him go out a minute or two before, I thought something had happened and I went into the prisoner’s room and the first thing I saw was a young woman lying in the floor with her throat cut. I saw her limbs move and she was covered with blood.
Oates immediately left the room and went to find Mrs Bradish’s husband and then a doctor. When he returned, the woman, who was only wearing a chemise, and whose name he then did not know, was dead.
Mr Cory, a surgeon, of St James’ Road, Kingston, had returned with Oates. It was now just after seven. He later recounted what he saw:
She was dead, but the flesh was quivering and she was quite warm. I observed a large wound on the right side of her neck, which completely divided the carotid artery, the jugular vein and the windpipe, and on the ring finger on the right hand I also observed a lacerated wound. The prisoner was in the room and when she saw me, she said, ‘Oh God, doctor, if I had had your advice before this would never have happened.’ I looked around the room to see if I could find any instrument with which the injuries had been inflicted, and then asked the prisoner how she had done it, and she took a razor from a drawer and then handed it to me. It appeared to have been recently washed.
The doctor had seen Mrs Bradish in the previous year, when she was suffering from a diseased liver. He recalled:
She had been, I believe, in the West Indies, and this had caused the malady from which she was suffering. She was very ill at that time, but she recovered, and I advised her to keep herself quiet and free from excitement.
Mrs Bradish was indeed not a well woman. She had contracted yellow fever whilst she and her husband were in the West Indies in 1857. She suffered from pains in the head and took laudanum for her sleeplessness and had troubled dreams.
PC John Gunner was the first policeman on the scene. Mrs Bradish told him, ‘I have cut that young woman’s throat and you must take me to the station.’ With the arrival of the police, Mrs Bradish was taken to the police station, and Elizabeth Barker, wife of a police sergeant there, searched her. She found some blood on her stocking, apparently caused when Mrs Bradish walked across the room without any shoes on. Sergeant Parsonage received her. He read the charge against her and cautioned her. She was very excited, and on seeing a newspaper, remarked, ‘Oh, a newspaper. I was reading a newspaper last week and there were accounts of some most dreadful murders in it, and to think that I should be the cause of another!’ Then she said, ‘I know where I am. I am in the station house.’
Inspector Armstrong was at the police station at 9am. He entered the charge against her on the police sheet. When he first saw the prisoner, she said, ‘This is a shocking thing I have done.’ He then cautioned her about saying anything else until she saw a legal representative.
On 26 March, at Kingston Town Hall, the magistrates held court. Mrs Bradish kept interrupting the proceedings by hysterical sobs and emotional shouts. All the time, her husband (never named in newspaper accounts) held her hand. She was committed to trial at the next sitting of the Assizes. Meanwhile, the inquest was held at the Compasses Inn in Kingston, two days later and the jury decided that this was a case of murder and that Martha Bradish was responsible.
Martha Bradish was tried at the Home Circuit Assizes, held at Croydon, before Mr Justice Blackburn, on 5 August 1861. She pleaded ‘not guilty’. Mr Robinson was the prosecutor and argued that there could be no doubt that Mrs Bradish had struck her step sister a fatal blow. The question, rather, was whether she was responsible for her actions or not. Jealousy nor anger were the motives for the murder. The facts of the murder were then recounted. Medical evidence suggested that Mrs Bradish had suffered from ‘foreign climates’ and this might have affected her mental state.
Kingston Town Hall, 1950s. Author’s collection
Mr Ribton, for the defence, stated that Mrs Bradish was not responsible for her actions. Witnesses attested to the mental history of her family. Her mother was insane; two relatives had tried to commit suicide and another had succeeded in this. Dr Hood, the consulting physician at the Bethlehem Hospital, an eminent figure in the mental health profession, said that women who were menopausal had been known to act erratically and violence was not unknown.
The jury acquitted the prisoner because she was not sane and so she was ordered to be committed to Broadmoor. Mrs Bradish, who had shown no emotion throughout, was led from the bar and into the asylum for the criminally insane. She clearly was very unwell, both physically and mentally and this led to her violent crime.
Martha Bradish was sent to Broadmoor, but was released on 13 May 1868 and was living in south London in 1871. However, she was readmitted on 21 February 1880. She died there on 14 November 1901. Curiously enough, her husband remarried. By 1881, he was married to one Emily, twenty-five years his junior, and they had a dozen children, aged (in 1881) from one to fourteen. Bradish remained in Kingston as a sergeant major in the militia. Since divorce was almost unknown among the working classes at this time, it is very odd that he remarried in the same locality, even though his first wife was still alive, though in an asylum. He certainly did not divorce his first wife, so the second marriage was illegal. He retired from the Army on 31 January 1883 and was given a strong commendation from his commanding officer, Colonel Daniell. According to Daniell:
The discharge of Sergeant Major Charles Bradish having been confirmed for this date, the officer commanding cannot allow him to leave the battalion without placing on record the valuable services he has rendered during his connection with the Regiment extending over a period of 22 years and 344 days. In his capacity of Sergeant Major he has uniformly exhibited in a marked degree all the qualifications essential to that position. His exacting energy, impartiality and the cheerful performance of duty under all circumstances however trying, he commanded the respect and ready obedience of all under him and set an example which should be remembered by men of all ranks.
Brandish died in 1890.
CHAPTER 5
Murder or Suicide?
1872
The deceased died from the mortal effects of having her throat cut, but the how the injury was inflicted, there is no evidence to show.
Thomas Martin, an elderly hurdle-maker (he made fences and wooden goods), lived in a two-storey house on the High Street, New Hampton. He had lived there since the 1830s. He was born in Buckinghamshire in about 1786. By 1871, he was a widower, his wife, Frances, dying in the 1860s. They had married in about 1814 and had at least four children. By 1851, all had left the family home, but the eldest, his unmarried daughter, Sarah Hooper Martin, who was aged fifty-two in 1872, had by then returned to live with him and carried on a laundry business on the premises. They were the sole residents.
Not much is known about Sarah. She had worked in domestic service at one time. Currently, she did some charring and sold fish as well as taking in washing. She was very poor and had pledged most of her clothes. Her neighbours knew of her poverty which was something she often complained about. The police report about her character stated that she was, ‘a woman of loose habits, and frequently got intoxicated and when she did she got so that she did some very eccentric things’. One of these was to jump out of moving carriages.
On Monday 2 December 1
872, Martin returned home at 4 pm and stayed there for an hour. His daughter had company: one Mrs Mitchell and her daughter. Martin then went out for a walk, returning at six. By this time his daughter’s visitors had left. It was also said that Sarah James, of North Road, Teddington, saw her, leaving at 6.40. He had his supper and then, just after 7 pm, went upstairs to bed.
As he was retiring for the night, his daughter was entertaining another female guest. The two women seemed to be having an amicable conversation about a place where the two of them had lived together in the past. Martin did not know the strange woman, but thought that she was from Kingston. He didn’t know why the woman had come to see Sarah, either. The two stayed together for some time (over two hours). They clearly had a lot to talk about.
Martin did not fall asleep at once. In any case, the sounds he heard below began to occupy his mind. He thought he could hear a scuffling noise, as if chairs and tables were being knocked about and his daughter’s voice rang out; or was it a scream? So he called out, ‘What’s the matter?’ He then believed his daughter replied, ‘Do you hear me?’ When he got out of the bed, he went to the top of the stairs and called out, but heard no reply. Everything was in darkness.
The old man then lit a candle and went downstairs. He found that the front door was open, but no one was about. He assumed that the spring latch had swung open, so he closed the door, fastening it firmly shut. He then went back upstairs to bed. He was not left undisturbed for long. The front door was forced open and a man came up the stairs to see him. It was a police sergeant and he had bad news about his daughter, who he initially said had been taken ill.
It appeared that Sarah and her guest had left the house sometime before 9.40 pm. It was at that latter time that Fanny Nash, a neighbour, heard the sound of something like a chair falling over and Sarah shouting, ‘Murder!’ She was then indoors. Edward Reddick, a fourteen-year-old plasterer, was actually outside and he heard Sarah shout, ‘Police!’ and ‘Help!’ More to the point, he claimed he saw a man jump over the gate of Martin’s house and run up the road towards Twickenham. The man was tall, dressed in dark clothes and wore a cap. As a description of a man seen momentarily in the dark, it was not too bad, but as a description of a wanted man it was nigh on useless.
Meanwhile, all attention focussed on Sarah. Mrs Nash had run out into the road, but terrified by Sarah’s screams, she quickly went to a nearby beer house, the Rising Sun, only returning when others came with her. She then approached Sarah and asked what was amiss. Her neighbour replied, ‘Oh! Mrs Nash, I’m murdered.’ She then staggered and fell onto the road. By this time, Edward Barnes, the publican of the aforesaid place, had arrived. He later said that Sarah had been briefly into this pub just before 10, and said, ‘Oh! Mr Barnes, I’m being murdered.’ Barnes did not pay much attention and failed to ask her who was responsible. Sarah then staggered out into the night when Mrs Nash had then seen her.
The Rising Sun pub, 2009. The Author
By this time, David Buckle, a carpenter, and a customer at the Rising Sun, had gone over to where Sarah was and picked her up. She said to him, ‘For Heaven’s sake, take me home.’ Finding she was covered with blood, one of the two ran for the police. PC Bassett was quick to arrive and by the time he did so, Sarah was dead. The men took her into her father’s house and lay her on the ground floor.
The room was in a state of disarray. Various articles had been disturbed and a plate had been broken. The carpet had been disarranged. Not everything had been knocked over. A glass with a half-pint of beer stood on a table. There was blood on a chair and on the fender. Under the chair was a razor. It was a new one and of an Army pattern. Presumably this was the murder weapon, because Sarah’s throat had been cut. Dr Vaughan Holberton, of Hampton, arrived on the scene at about 10 pm. The jagged incised wound was from left to right. The jugular vein had been cut, but it was not deep. There were no other wounds caused by the razor, but her nose had been injured, possibly due to a fall in the road. Certainly her face was smeared with mud, again presumably caused by a fall. No clues could be found outside the house, either.
Dr Diplock, coroner of the Western Division of Middlesex, begun the inquest enquiries at the New Hampton Working Men’s Institute. After the doctor and other witnesses had given their evidence, the following conclusion possible was reached: ‘The deceased died from the mortal effects of having her throat cut, but how the injury was inflicted, there is no evidence to show’.
Detective Inspector Frederick Williamson and his officers set to work. One possible suspect was John Etherington, a hairdresser, of Richmond, who was a close friend of Sarah’s and an occasional visitor, ‘who had for many years been intimate with her and from time to time used to give her money’. However, although questioned, ‘He admitted that he was in the habit of visiting deceased, but that he had not been to her house for about seven weeks.’ He was seen by detectives on the following day and he willingly showed them his clothes and his hands, which were dirty, but there was no sign of any blood there. Moreover, he had a strong alibi. On the night of Sarah’s death, he shut up shop at 8.45 pm, then he went to his brother’s house at Twickenham, arriving at 9.40 pm. They left twenty minutes later, to meet a friend at The George pub. Finally, the three walked home and went as far as Richmond Bridge together. Williamson commented, ‘He could not, therefore, if this be true, have been at Hampton at the time of the supposed murder.’ The seller of the razor, one Mr Alldiss, of 16 Gray’s Inn Road, was unable to help because he could not recall to whom he sold all his wares.
Williamson made his final report on 9 February 1873. He concluded that this was almost certainly a case of suicide, not murder. This was for a number of reasons. Dr Holberton, who examined the corpse, was convinced it was suicide. Secondly, Edward Reddick, who is the only witness to have seen anyone else, was thought to be unreliable, Williamson saying, ‘This boy is however known to be dishonest and untruthful, and scarcely any reliance could be placed upon his statement, as he told us two or three different versions to the neighbours.’ No evidence for murder existed and there were no signs of a second party or any violence. There seemed, in any case, no reason for anyone to murder her (‘we fail at present to obtain any clue to the supposed murderer’), but there were reasons for suicide, given her great poverty. Louisa Digly said, ‘The deceased had told her she said she had been very low spirited of late in consequences of being so poor’.
Yet some believed this was murder, and the magistrates were applied to, that they ask the Home Secretary to issue a reward for the apprehension of her killer. The Times newspaper also heavily suggested that this was a murder. Yet, as we have seen, in police circles there was ‘considerable doubt whether deceased committed suicide or whether she was murdered’. Suicide seems the most likely solution, given the motive; whereas there are none for murder and no second party was ever seen by a reliable witness.
CHAPTER 6
A Pauper’s Death
1877
I beg further to report that up to the present time no trace has been obtained of the person or persons supposed to have been concerned in the murder of Patrick Earley.
James Pocock, a large market gardener, of Lower Road, Mortlake, employed a number of men and boys in his gardens. It was his custom to pay his workers on every Saturday evening, and the evening of Saturday 4 August 1877 was no exception. Among those being paid were Patrick Earley, aged about seventy-six, Ernest Burgess and Daniel Lee, all of whom were agricultural labourers. Both Earley and Burgess lived in Lower Road, too, but Lee resided at Sandy Lane in Richmond. Cooper was another worker who was paid at this time. Earley received 15s.
Earley, Cooper and Lee walked along a private road which ran adjacent to the London and South Western Railway on the Mortlake side, past Kew station. Cooper left the other two at this point and went his separate way home. The two others continued, but finding his pace was slowed by the old man’s walk, Burgess left him and proceeded rather more quickly. He was doubtless surprised to
see on his walk a man who he knew worked as a labourer for a Mr Morrison. Thinking nothing of this, he continued his walk home.
However, on Monday morning, George Frampton, foreman at Pocock’s gardens, noticed Earley’s absence. He seems to have been the first person to have made a fuss about this. Fearing that the old man had had a fit, Pocock instituted a search for him. Burgess told him of the last time he had seen Earley alive. Lee looked in a large plantation of gooseberry bushes, where, on their outside, he saw a gathering basket amongst them, about twenty yards from the path where Burgess and Earley had walked along on the preceding Saturday. It was the type of basket that women put fruit in and were sometimes left behind. He went over towards it and amongst the bushes made a shocking discovery. He saw Earley’s body.
Lower Richmond Road, 2009. The Author
He was lying on his right side, across two gooseberry bushes. His body was drawn up and his left arm was partially raised as if he had tried to defend himself. His head was hanging down and beneath it was a round hole, full of blood.
It was a secluded place. To have reached it would have meant to have left the path and then turning into a path across the gardens which led to a row of walnut trees. The path then turned to the right and was secluded and shady. It was assumed that he had been stunned near to the path and then carried to the spot where he was murdered. There were no signs of broken bushes or any indication of a struggle having occurred. There was no reason why anyone should have gone to that site, as the gathering season was over. It could have lain there for months before being spotted. Once it had been found, however, the alarm was raised.
Foul Deeds in Richmond and Kingston Page 4