Cambridgeshire Murders

by Alison Bruce

  5 John Stallon, known as the Shelford Incendiary, was executed after setting twelve out of thirteen fires that had occurred in Shelford in the early 1830s.

  6 William Calcraft executed between 400 and 450 people between 1829 and 1874, making him the longest serving and most prolific of executioners. He had the reputation, however, of miscalculating the drop, so that many of the condemned were strangled to death.

  7

  THE ONE SHILLING KILLING

  Newmarket Road is a long road leading into Cambridge from the east, which changes its name to Maids Causeway as it nears the city centre. In the nineteenth century its local nickname was Coarse Maid’s Way, as it was well known as a thoroughfare along which prostitutes would walk to the red light area. Along Maids Causeway was a junction known as Four Lamps. It was near there that two prostitutes, Emma Rolfe and Annie Pepper, met a young tailor named Robert Browning on the evening of Thursday 24 August 1876.

  Browning was in his early twenties, with various reports stating that he was between 23 and 25, but was said to look much younger. He was also described as having ‘an imperfect education’ and had been discharged from the 9th Regiment with a bad character reference. Since his discharge he had worked with his brother at a shop in Covent Garden in the Mill Road area of Cambridge. The brothers lived with their parents but Browning chose to spend most of his free evenings drinking and paying for the company of prostitutes.

  The brothers’ latest commission had been to make a pair of trousers for a local businessman named Mr Ward. This client had offered to pay them extra if they finished on time and, once their work was completed, the brothers headed off for the evening. It was about 8.30 p.m. when Browning left his brother and went home for supper. He seemed preoccupied and ate little. His mother suggested that he would be better off staying in for the rest of the evening but Browning took no notice. Instead he slipped a cut-throat razor into his coat pocket and left the house.

  First he went to Fair Street and into a pub called Canham’s then, at 9.30 p.m., met with the two young prostitutes, possibly by prior arrangement. He was not interested in both of them, so Pepper departed and Browning was left alone with Rolfe, who was only 16 years old but who had been living in a brothel for the previous few weeks. A Mrs Phillips owned the brothel, which was situated in Crispin Street.

  With the promise of a shilling Rolfe willingly accompanied him into the darkness of Midsummer Common. Within moments he had taken out his razor and sliced open her throat. Her death was almost instantaneous but, some way across Midsummer Common, Constable Joseph Wheel heard a single shriek.

  Browning left her body where it fell and returned the bloodied razor to his pocket. Despite his bloody and dishevelled state he walked to the nearby Garrick Inn and drank a quick glass of ale. On his departure he ran into PC Wheel who was searching for the source of the scream. Browning immediately handed himself over but was not taken seriously until he had taken the constable onto the Butts Green area of Midsummer Common and exposed Rolfe’s body. The wound in her neck was so enormous that her head was almost severed. Browning’s explanation was that she had tried to steal a shilling from him. He showed Wheel the murder weapon.

  Browning said, ‘I just killed the girl. Don’t let me look at her. Take me away from her. Don’t look at her.’ And a little later he added, ‘I hope the poor girl is in Heaven. I did not give her much time to repent.’ He was also concerned about the effect his crime would have on his mother.

  Mr Southall, a lodger at the Garrick Inn, joined PC Wheel and together they took Browning to the police station.

  Rolfe’s body was taken to the Fort St George public house where an inquest was held the following day. Her father, James Rolfe, a hawker living in Leeder’s Row, identified the victim’s body. He explained that she had moved out of his house and claimed not to know where she had lived since. When he explained that they no longer spoke when they saw one another it was clear that they had fallen out.

  Mr Robert Roper, a surgeon of Cambridge, described the body:

  On the night of Thursday, the 24th of August, a few minutes before ten, I was sent for to go to the Common where I found a woman lying on her left side with her throat cut and quite dead. In half a minute’s time a policeman came up and showed us his light. It was intensely dark but I knew the woman was dead before he arrived. On examining the body, I found the head and hands cold but the arms were warm. The woman had been dead very few minutes. It was an extensive wound from the left to the right, quite down through everything to the spinal column. It was the largest wound of the kind I ever saw. It was high up in the throat under the chin. Such a wound might have been given by a razor and would cause immediate death. I believe the woman was lying on the ground. I don’t believe a person would have inflicted the wound on the woman while she was standing. Great force must have been used in inflicting the wound.

  After hearing other statements from police and other witnesses the jury at the inquest returned a verdict of ‘Wilful murder by Robert Browning’. On 29 August Browning was brought before the mayor of the borough and committed for trial. He was sent to Norwich Gaol to await the winter assizes, which were to take place in the city in November.

  During his trial his mother testified that he had appeared ‘very gloomy and strange’ since coming home after his army discharged. She also explained that:

  he was very ill and went into Addenbrooke’s Hospital, but I did not know with what complaint. When he came out of the hospital he appeared to be strange and gloomy. He sulked and did not take his food. This strange appearance increased up to the time of this occurrence. There was a great change in him since Midsummer Fair. My bedroom was close to his. At night I have heard him very restless and often out of bed.

  It was also established that there was a history of insanity in other male members of Browning’s family.

  The biggest clue to the motive for the murder came from Mr James Hough, surgeon to the gaol, who stated:

  I have frequently seen the prisoner, who was suffering from a contagious disease when he was taken into custody. He was in a very bad state. Under my care he has, to a certain extent, recovered. I saw the prisoner nearly every day, and I have had the opportunity of observing his conduct. I never saw anything in his mind, manner and acts to lead me to suppose that there was anything wrong in his mind. I am not aware that a chronic state of the disease from which he was suffering has a tendency to weaken the brain. The disease, so far from affecting the brain, was of a purely local nature.

  When Browning eventually revealed his motive for murdering Rolfe it transpired that she had just been an unfortunate victim of circumstance. Browning had held a grudge against prostitutes since catching an incurable venereal disease from an encounter in Royston. It was in fact this girl, who he referred to as ‘Miss Bell’, that he had wanted to kill.

  On 29 November Browning was found guilty. Although he made very little effort to defend himself the jury showed some sympathy and asked the judge, Mr Justice Lush to consider sparing him the death penalty on the ground of his youth. Justice Lush, however, saw little reason for leniency and included the following words as he passed sentence: ‘The law, however, is more humane than you were. You felt immediately afterwards that you were taking the girl’s life away without the slightest opportunity for repentance or preparation. You will have time, and I hope and pray that you will make use of the time which the law allows you, in order to prepare for that event . . . I shall take care to convey the recommendation of the jury to the proper quarter; but I cannot hold out any hope that the recommendation will have any effect.’ After sentencing Browning was transferred to Cambridge Gaol.

  Browning was interviewed by the Inspector of Prisons, Dr Briscoe, and given the chance to put forward his case. The inspector’s report concurred with Justice Lush’s sentence and its findings were passed on to the Home Secretary.

  The sentence stood therefore. Shortly before 8 a.m. on 15 December 1876 Browning was led to the gallo
ws. Before his execution he made a full confession which included the following statement: ‘Having promised the girl a shilling, we walked together on to the common and scarcely spoke a word, when, without provocation on her part, I committed the foul deed, feeling at the moment that I must take away the life of some one.’

  According to The Times:

  He slept comfortably during the night, and rose a little after 6 o’clock, when he partook of breakfast – bread and butter and cocoa. He walked from his cell, accompanied by the chaplain and officials, to the scaffold with a firm step but crying and sobbing. At 8 o’clock the bell of St Paul’s Church and that of the prison announced the fatal hour. The prisoner said nothing, but listened to the chaplain. Marwood, with his usual expedition, performed the execution, and in a minute or two the unhappy man ceased to live. He was heard to exclaim ‘Oh!’

  Marwood had allowed a drop of 6ft 10in because Robert Browning was of ‘light stature’.

  Browning was the first person to be executed within the walls of Cambridge Gaol. Several street ballads were composed and this is the chorus of one:

  Poor Emma Rolfe,

  Thy fate was dreadful,

  For vengeance now,

  Your blood it cries.

  We hope your precious soul’s in heaven,

  Far away in your blue skies.

  And this, to the tune of ‘Driven from Home’, was circulated while Browning was in gaol awaiting trial:

  Poor Emma Rolfe had no time to repent

  On Midsummer Common to Eternity sent

  Robert Brown (sic) was her murderer, in prison he’s cast

  From virtue she strayed to be murdered at last.

  8

  ’TIS QUITE HARMLESS

  At the time of his conviction the Daily News described Walter Horsford as ‘the greatest monster of our criminal annals’. It had not taken long for him to gain the soubriquet of ‘the St Neots Poisoner’ despite his never having lived in the town. Although he was arrested and convicted of just one murder, he was suspected of committing at least two more. Even before his arrest in 1897, there had been rumours that he was responsible for some sudden and unexplained deaths in the area.

  He was born in 1872 and as a teenager lived with his parents in Stow Longa, a small village situated just outside Spaldwick. By the early 1890s Horsford was described as ‘a respectable farmer’ who tilled land not far from his home. In 1897 he was having an affair with one of his first cousins, Mrs Annie Holmes, who was twelve years his senior. She had been married to a coal and corn merchant from a village just outside Thrapston in Northamptonshire, but was widowed in the mid-1880s at the age of 25. For two years, until October 1897, she lived in Stoney, near Kimbolton, Huntingdon-shire with her son Percy and daughter, also called Annie. While at Stoney she gave birth to another son but it is not known who his father was.

  Horsford was a fairly frequent visitor, but on 14 October Mrs Holmes moved her family to rented accommodation in East Street, St Neots. It is not known what prompted the move, but just twelve days later, on 26 October 1897, Horsford married a young woman named Bessie.

  A drawing of Annie Holmes. (St Neots Advertiser)

  The relationship between Holmes, now 38, and Horsford, was almost at an end, although he did make at least two visits to her at her new address. During December she wrote to inform him that she was pregnant. In his reply he advised her to see a Dr Mackenzie at Raunds. Although she wrote to this doctor she does not appear to have visited.

  At the turn of the year Horsford contacted her again, this time by letter, which she received on 5 January. He wrote:

  Dear Annie, Will come over Friday to see you if I can come to an arrangement of some sort or other, but you must remember that I paid you half a crown, so if I thought well not to give you anything you could not get it, but still, I don’t want to talk and hear that it is by me, if you really are so.

  Don’t write any more letters as I don’t want Bessie to know.

  On the day of the arranged meeting, 7 January 1898, Holmes seemed anxious. Her daughter said she seemed as though she were waiting for something, but instead of a visit from Horsford she received a letter. In the evening Holmes fed her children (Percy now aged 15, Annie 14 and the baby aged 1) and went to bed with the baby. As she had spent the day feeling unwell she took a glass of water with her.

  Mother, daughter, and baby shared a bed, and when young Annie joined her mother she noticed that the glass standing on the chest of drawers was virtually empty. Her mother still did not feel well and asked her daughter for a ‘sweetie’ which she sucked upon. A short time afterwards, probably within the next twenty minutes, Holmes’s daughter noticed that her mother was ill, ‘struggling and kicking as if suffering convulsions’. Firstly the neighbours, Mrs Fisher and Mrs Ashwell, were called and then Percy ran for the St Neots doctor, Joseph Herbert Anderson.

  Dr Anderson found Holmes suffering convulsions, with her face and lips livid and her eyes strained and rolled up towards the ceiling. Dr Anderson later explained that his instant assumption was that she had been poisoned and he therefore asked her what she had taken.

  She replied, ‘I have taken a powder to procure an abortion.’ She continued to reply to his questions between convulsions and despite her pain she was totally coherent and added: ‘I believe I am poisoned.’

  The doctor prepared an antidote but Holmes died before it could be administered. Although it was the first case of strychnine poisoning1 he had seen he was immediately clear that it was the cause of the symptoms. The antidote he prepared was choral and bromide of potassium. Although he knew she was about to die he hoped that he might be able to alleviate some of her symptoms.

  The police were contacted and, at 11.40 p.m., John Allen Purser, an officer from St Neots, arrived and spoke with the victim’s daughter. He decided to search the house and started, aided by a Sarah Hensman, in the bedroom. Almost immediately they found a plain sheet of paper under the head of the bed.

  Moving through the house, Purser found seven packets of Dover Powders2 that Holmes had kept in her workbasket downstairs. On completion of his search, at approximately 1.30 a.m., he locked the house and left it empty, returning at 10 a.m. the following morning. He searched the bed as well as he could without disturbing the body but despite lifting the mattress discovered nothing else. He left again at 11.15 a.m. leaving young Annie and a Miss Mary Agnes Busby in the house. He arrived back at 2 p.m., shortly before Dr Arthur Cromac Turner, a St Neots surgeon, who was to undertake the post mortem.

  Doctors Anderson and Turner carried out the post mortem where it was confirmed that Holmes had died from strychnine poisoning. All her organs were in good health and she was found to be not pregnant.

  The inquest was held the same day. The coroner was Charles Robert Wade-Gery. Dr Anderson gave his findings, which were corroborated by Dr Turner.

  One of the witnesses called was Horsford, whose signed deposition stated: ‘I live at Spaldwick. Cousin of the deceased. Have known her all my life. I have never written to her all my life or sent her anything either by post or messenger. I have been to see her twice since she lived at St Neots, but there has been no familiarity between us at any time.’

  However, on the 8th, when Holmes’s body was being laid out, three papers were discovered under the mattress. One was the letter Annie had received on 5 January, the second was a packet with the words ‘One dose, take as told’, and the third a note which said, ‘Take in a little water; ’tis quite harmless. Will come over in a day or two and see you.’ All three papers bore Horsford’s handwriting and the packet contained no fewer than 30 grains of strychnine.

  On Sunday 9 January Constable Elmore joined Purser at Holmes’s house. They made another search, but no other poisons were found. The only unidentified substance in the house turned out to be baking powder; it appeared that the strychnine could only have come from the packet under the mattress. Purser was also present at the inquest and when the inquest statement was read out and
signed by Horsford.

  On Monday 10 January the coroner issued a warrant for Horsford’s arrest. Purser drove to the accused’s farm at Spaldwick and detained him on a charge of wilful and corrupt perjury. Purser said, ‘I hold a warrant for you for perjury at the inquest on Annie Holmes on the 8th inst.’

  Horsford replied, ‘Perjury : I don’t know what it means.’

  ‘It means you told a lie when giving your evidence.’

  ‘I don’t understand it.’

  As Horsford was cautioned, Bessie said: ‘I believe it is all about that woman Annie Holmes,’ and then asked whether her husband would be able to come home again that evening. Purser was non-committal but said that he hoped it would be possible.

  However, Horsford remained in custody and, at St Neots Police Court3 on 27 January, he was brought before magistrates having been charged with both perjury and wilful murder. Holmes’s body had been exhumed from Stow Longa on 26 January and a Home Office analyst, Dr Thomas Stevenson, was conducting experiments on the organs with the assistance of Dr Anderson. Because of the nature of the tests Dr Stevenson warned that it would take up to a month for the results to be available. The case therefore was adjourned.

  Walter Horsford drawn by a Leader artist. (The Leader)

  The case finally came before the south-eastern circuit Assizes on 2 June. The judge was Mr Justice Henry Hawkins, with Mr J.F.P. Rawlinson, Q.C. and Mr Raikes standing for the prosecution and Mr E.E. Wild and Mr Barrett presenting the defence.

  Dr Stevenson’s results were made public at the second day of the Assizes, on 2 June 1898. From the stomach contents he had extracted 1.31 grains of strych-nine. He had conducted multiple tests – including testing some of the poison on animals – but no other toxins had been detected. The paper marked ‘one dose, take as told’ held 33.75 grains and another paper marked with blue and red lines also showed traces of strychnine.