Cambridgeshire Murders

by Alison Bruce

  However, Thomas got word that Amy and John Hutchinson were about to marry and rushed back to Whittlesey only to see the two leaving the church as man and wife. Amy was distraught when she saw him and instantly realised what a terrible mistake she had made by marrying a man she did not love.

  Within days Thomas and Amy were seeing one another again but were not as discreet as they should have been. Very soon neighbours were gossiping and John Hutchinson became jealous. Amy’s arguments with her husband culminated with him beating her with a belt or stick on several occasions, but also with a realisation that his wife would not change her ways. He began to drink heavily and to stay away from home.

  At about 5 a.m. on 14 October, just seven weeks and one day after their wedding, John Hutchinson became ill, complaining of the ‘ague’. Amy brewed him some warm ale but on seeing no improvement she sent for Mary Watson. Mary stated that she found John very ill and that the boiled beer given to him by Amy had made him feel worse. According to some accounts John was still alive at 9 a.m., but died soon afterwards. Mary Watson claimed that:

  Ann Conquest, the sister of the said Amey [sister-in-law] went for this deponent in the afternoon following to desire after to come and see the said John and upon going he apprehended to this deponent to be dying and dyed within about three-quarters of an hour after. That he did not complain that any means had been used to shorted his life. That this deponent was at the laying out of the said John after death and that nothing appeared to her this deponent but that he dyed of his natural death.

  Initially John’s death was not considered suspicious, and the burial took place in Whittlesey on 16 October 1748. However, when Amy’s lover moved in only a few days later in what seemed to be a blatant act of disrespect, the people of Whittlesey grew uneasy. On 19 October John’s body was exhumed and three surgeons, John Clarke, William Benning and John Stona, carried out an autopsy. In the mid-eighteenth century methods of detecting and identifying poisons were primitive, so their account of their findings is both graphic and fascinating:

  We whose names are here unto subscribed being called upon the day and date above to open the body of John Hutchinson deceased found his stomach had been much inflamed and in it a bloody liquor with a mucus matter of the same colour which we imagine to be caused by some corrosive medicine taken inwardly.

  The said liquor and mucus we immediately gave to a dog kept him confined and he expired about seven hours after.

  The next day upon opening the dog found his stomach much in the same manner as the deceased John Hutchinson’s and caused as we believe by the liquor out of his stomach.

  The ensuing inquest heard statements from a variety of Whittlesey residents. One of the statements, which was to lead to Amy’s arrest, came from shopkeeper William Hawkins, who testified that he had sold Amy Hutchinson an ounce of white arsenick4 (sic) on Thursday 13 October. He said that she had wanted it to poison rats but could not say what use she had actually put it to.

  By Tuesday 18 October Amy was under arrest and being held at the house of John Stona. A villager named Mary Addison, who asked her whether she had any poison in her house, visited her. Amy told her about the rat poison, saying that she had mixed it up with oatmeal and placed it under the floorboards. Mary went to the Hutchinson house the following morning where she found a broken pot containing the mixture Amy had described. Unfortunately for Amy, instead of retrieving it so that an attempt could be made to gauge the amount of arsenic it contained, Mary covered it with hay and left it there.

  Most of the witness statements did not help Amy’s situation. Even though Mary Watson said that John Hutchinson did not think he had been poisoned, telling the jury it was the beer that had made him worse would have weighed heav-ily against Amy. Even when John Hutchinson was portrayed at the inquest as a brutal man, the evidence did not lean in Amy’s favour.

  An example of John Hutchinson’s violence was relayed to the inquest jury by Prudence Watson of Whittlesey, who testified on 20 October. About three weeks earlier she had been at John and Amy’s house. She and Amy had been drinking tea and decided to try reading their tea leaves when John returned home. After an angry exchange with his wife, John turned on Prudence and kicked her down the stairs. Prudence explained to the inquest that soon after this assault she had received a visit from Amy, who suggested that, as she was pregnant, she should press charges. Amy also stated that she feared that her husband ‘would knock her on the head’. However, instead of winning any sympathy for Amy, Prudence’s disclosure was seen as a sign of Amy’s faithlessness and willingness to betray her husband.

  Prudence Watson’s statement

  Many of the statements were little more than hearsay and gossip, including accounts of tea-leaf reading from Alice Hardley (the mother of Amy’s sister-in-law Ann) who said that Amy had seen a man’s coffin and a child’s coffin in her cup. There was a questionable statement from Alice Oldfield, who claimed that Prudence Watson had talked about an unnamed man who had died and whose wife was under suspicion; Alice suspected this to be Amy.

  Statements such as this offered little in the way of evidence but they do show the weight given to rumour. It is possible that many of the friends, neighbours and even relatives who gave evidence against Amy at the inquest and the trial did not distinguish between scandal-mongering among themselves and testifying under oath. Unfortunately for Amy, when the inquest jury returned its verdict on Monday 7 November, the opening words demonstrated the damage that had been done: the said John Hutchinson was wilfully and maliciously murdered by poison of which the said John on Fryday the fourteenth day of October last languished and dyed that it does not appear to them who were the person or persons that committed the said murder but that they have just reason to suspect that the same was committed and done by Amey the wife of the said John.

  On 12 November summons were issued for witnesses to appear at the next Ely Assize or General Gaol Delivery. Records exist showing that among those to receive a summons were John Hammant, John Clark, John Stona, William Benning, William Hawk, Thomas Boon, Ann Baggerley and Alice Setchells, and that failure to appear in court ‘and there give such evidence as one knoweth against Amey Hutchinson’ would result in a £20 fine being issued upon the individual and their heirs. Of course £20 would have been a vast sum of money and these witnesses would have taken their duty very seriously.

  Prudence Watson elaborated on her previous statement and claimed that Amy did not care about her husband, would like to ‘get shot of him’ and ‘that she didst not go to bed without taking a knife along with her’. Prudence also named Thomas Reed, butcher, as a regular visitor to Amy’s house, although she only said that he had attempted to get in and made no mention of reports that he had moved in after John Hutchinson’s death. Strangely, Thomas Reed was not called to give evidence.

  Nor do there appear to be any surviving copies of Amy’s own statements or the numerous appeals that were said to have taken place.

  Amy was arrested and charged with petit (petty) treason, which was essentially the same as murder, but was considered to be more serious because the murderer was in a position of trust in relation to the victim. Petit treason applied to the murder by a woman of her husband or a servant of his master or a clergyman of his superior: in all these cases the victims were considered to be the killer’s superiors in law. In the 1750s William Blackstone wrote the following in his Commentaries on the Laws of England: ‘The punishment of petit treason in a man was to be drawn and hanged, and in a woman to be drawn and burnt’ and later in the same publication that this ‘was the usual punishment for all sorts of treasons committed by those of the female sex’.

  Burning at the stake was abolished in 1790. From 1700 until this date women who were sentenced to be burned were strangled with a rope first. However, in several instances this was attempted only as the fire was kindling, the result being that the fire often started burning the unfortunate condemned before the executioner could strangle her. The last time a woman h
ad been burnt at the stake in Ely was when Mary Bird had been executed for petit treason on 1 July 1737.

  The final surviving document on the Amy Hutchinson case from the Ely Diocese Records is dated 10 October 1749, almost a year later than the other statements; it is the verdict from a trial said to have lasted for four hours at which Amy always protested her innocence. It concludes:

  The said John Hutchinson not in the least suspecting any poison to have been mixed or compounded with the said potion but believing the said potion to be wholesome . . . by which taking and swallowing the said potion so as aforesaid compounded mixed vitiated and infected with the said poison called Arsenick the said John Hutchinson then and there became sick and greatly distempered in his body of which sickness and distemper the said John Hutchinson from the aforesaid fourteenth day of October in the year aforesaid until the fifteenth day of the same month of October did languish and languishing did live on which said fifteenth day of October died.

  And so the jurors upon their oaths do say that the said Amey Hutchinson the said John Hutchinson her late husband in manner and form aforesaid feloniously, traitorously, wilfully and of her malice aforethought did poison kill and murder against the law of our said Lord the King his Crown and Dignity.

  Ely Assizes were held only once each year, and while awaiting trial Amy was held in the Ely Gaol (now Ely Museum). The assizes were regarded as a great social event and attracted large crowds. Many assize towns in the shire counties had designated ‘hanging days’, often market days to ensure the biggest crowd: the spectacle of the execution was intended to deter as many as possible from committing crimes.

  The 1749 Assizes were a particular attraction because two people, Amy Hutchinson and John Vicars, were being tried for murder, and, as leniency in murder cases was rare, spectators had a good chance of seeing an execution. Curiously, both John Vicars and Amy Hutchinson were from Whittlesey and were on trial for the murder of their spouses. Amy had been married for just seven weeks and Vicars for about ten. But there the similarities ended, as after weeks of bad relations with his new wife, John Vicars had openly gone to the shop where she worked and cut her throat, then ran into the street and shouted for someone to arrest him. It was said that he admitted that ‘he dearly loved his wife, but her provocation was so great, and she was such a damned whore that he could not let her live, nor live without her’. The verdict at his trial declared that he:

  Feloniously wilfully and of his malice aforethought did make an assault and that he the said John Juckers, otherwise Vicars, with a certain knife of the value of four pound which he the said John Juckers, otherwise Vicars, then and there had and hold the said Mary Juckers, otherwise Vicars, in and upon the left side of the neck or throat ... one mortal wound of the breadth of three inches and of the depth of four inches of which said mortal wound the said Mary Juckers, otherwise Vicars, from the said twenty-fifth day of April in the year aforesaid until the twenty-seventh day of the same month of April ... of the said mortal wound died.

  Vicars readily admitted his guilt at the assizes, his only request being that he wished to see Amy Hutchinson dispatched first. This was an unusual request in that it was common for the burning of women to occur after the other condemned prisoners had been hanged; but the wish was granted. Both were executed on 7 November 1749. A sledge drew Amy Hutchinson to the execution site and ‘her face and hands being smeared with tar, and having a garment dawb’d with pitch, after a short prayer, the executioner strangled her, and 20 minutes after, the fire was kindled, and burnt half an hour’. Despite the spectacle of the execution, there was some disquiet in the crowd, since there had been no solid evidence against Amy and she had never admitted her guilt.

  One week after Amy’s death at least two publications carried her ‘confessions’: the Norwich Mercury of 9 November 1749 contained a full account, purportedly in Amy’s own words. Then the November 1749 edition of the Gentleman’s Magazine repeated most of the account in the form of a letter from an unnamed third person who had recounted the story ‘chiefly’ from Amy’s own words.

  The origin of both is a document witnessed by the gaoler Mr Alday. Amy only ‘signed’ with a cross, and yet she had received schooling until the age of 12 so should have been able to write her name. By contrast, the words of the statement appear to have been written by someone who had received a better education than Amy.

  Whether or not the confession is genuine will never be known, but it remains an interesting and enlightening document. The final sentences are typical of the reported last words of condemned prisoners; they warn the public against bad conduct and perhaps do not ring as true as the earlier reference to another prisoner she calls T.N. If the entire statement was a fabrication it seems illogical that this passage was included as it not only shows the gaol in a bad light but also elicits some sympathy for Amy.

  The Norwich Mercury reported:

  The following is the NARRATIVE of the life of Amy Hutchinson as taken from her own mouth:

  I was born of honest and industrious parents, and my Mother still living, of whom, next to God, I ought in duty to beg forgiveness, having by the scandal of my life reflected disgrace upon her, but very undeservedly; for I was put to school and taught to read, and brought up in a sober, regular family, ’till about 12 years of age: At which time I was taken notice of by one T.R. and much in his favour; who when I grew up to 15 or 16 made his addresses to me in the way of courtship, but without my parents consent, my own father being then alive, who being acquainted by neighbours of the correspondence carried on between us, which had ripen’d into a detestable sin, absolutely forbad the continuance of it, warned T.R. not to come to the house, and wholly debarred me from him.

  Apprehensive of what might follow, tho’ he had promised me marriage, T.R. now pretended a great desire of seeing London first and I growing as suspicious that this might be an expedient to leave me in my shame, was as earnest to divert him from the journey, but finding I could not prevail, we parted in great wrath; and John Hutchinson coming in that evening (who likewise courted me, but to whom I had given no encouragement before) I consented to marry him the next day. I had heard that T.R. was set out on his journey to London, however he was not gone so far but a messenger overtook him, and he was at the church door when our wedding was just over.

  In three or four days after I was married, my former suitor renewed his application with threatnings, that my husband and I should not live long together; and again said, That if I did not kill my husband, he would kill me, and advised me to poison him; and about ten or eleven o’clock one night; when I had not been married a week, my husband being abroad, T.R. having a hanger, thrust it thro’ the Window, and said, He would stab me if I did not follow his advice; being interrupted by some neighbours going by, he went away, but never left teasing me till I promised him to undertake that abominable act, for which I now abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.

  My late husband John Hutchinson was an Irishman, and had lived about a year and half in the town, supporting himself decently by his honest labour. His addresses to me were private, but without any indecent liberties; and when I over night consented to have him, he joyfully accepted my declaration in his favour; and procuring a licence next morning we were married; and to the time of his unhappy death, lived together about ten weeks. I must do him the justice to say, that if my behaviour had been dutiful and faithful to him, I might have lived very happily with him.

  My mother and father-in-law were well reconciled to us, and every thing spoke peace and quiet, till T.R. came to me, and my husband was by my own mother and others acquainted with his frequent and public visits to me. From this discovery he grew disturbed, uneasy and peevish, and several times beat me with a belt or a stick; and tho’ he never reproached me with the cause of his anger, told me I knew what it was for, and I verily believed if I could have refrained from the company of T.R. my husband would have left off his correction, which I justly deserved; and if effectual, would have preve
nted a sorer punishment. However, as my heart was never wholly his, and this ill treatment (as I thought it) urged me on, so it was unhappy on his part, that he seeing no amendment in me, fell into company, and took to spending his time and money abroad, and by that means left me too unguarded to the wiles of my seducer, to whom I once more abandon’d myself, forgetting all reputation, reason and humanity.

  By his wicked advice I bought poison, and was directed how to use it, and to give it my husband in some warm ale, accordingly I bought some poison of Mr. Hawkins on the Thursday, and my husband happened to have two or three fits of an ague, this seemed a fit occasion to give him the fatal draught, which I did about five o’clock on the Friday morning, and about nine the same morning, going over the market place (for my mother coming in had sent me for a little wine for my husband) I told T.R. what I had done, and that my husband was yet alive, and he bid me get some more poison, as I did then of Mr. Gibbs, but there was no need of it, for my husband died the Friday about one o’clock. My mother finding that day the poison I bought last, first taxed me with a suspicion, and said, I am afraid you have done something to your husband, and I answered, What makes you think so mother, but she never gave me the reason.