by Alison Bruce
Full details of the crime were presented including details of Miss Lawn’s financial circumstances. Based on the transactions that Miss Lawn had made during the morning of 27 July the police knew that at least a 10s note, a shilling and half a crown had been removed from the till. During the search of her house £130 had been found in notes under her carpets and lino and under her piano. In the attic they found a tin containing £13 10s in notes, £4 in silver and an old purse containing £21 in gold. There was also a post office savings book showing a balance of £469 9s 9d, making her a secretly wealthy woman. Not even her closest friend, Elizabeth Papworth and her family, knew anything about her money.
Curtis Bennett K.C. and Travers Humphreys represented the case for the Crown. The prosecution intended to call in excess of forty witnesses: they aimed to establish that it was physically possible for Thomas Clanwaring to have been at Miss Lawn’s shop at the time of her death and that robbery could have been a motive. They also sought to show that Clanwaring had behaved suspiciously after Miss Lawn’s death, that he had implicated himself in the murder by comments he had made, and had, according to two fellow Bedford gaol prisoners, confessed to the crime.
With this in mind Bennett showed that on the day of the murder Clanwaring had been to the mayor at 10 a.m. to obtain a pedlar’s licence. At between 10.20 and 10.30 he had spoken to two women in King Street. They had stood almost opposite Miss Lawn’s shop as Clanwaring had told them that he needed 25s to get photographs taken. Shortly after this he met up with Briggs and Turner, visited two local businesses and by 10.55 a.m. had entered the Rose and Crown public house in Newmarket Road where he stopped long enough to have a drink. While he was in the pub he attempted to sell a wristwatch for 4s and had apparently said: ‘I would not sell this for 4s, but I’m absolutely on the rocks.’ The previous evening he had also attempted to sell his cap for 1s.
Witnesses reported that he had left the pub again just before eleven. In theory he had just about enough time to have reach King Street and lock himself inside the shop before Arthur Sexton found the door locked at about five past. Clanwaring was next sighted between 11.30 and noon near 70 King Street and the Wednesday market. At 12 o’clock he entered Warrington’s butcher’s shop in Magdalene Street where he exchanged 10s of coppers and silver and a 10s note for a £1 note.
Next, at about 1 p.m., he went to Briggs’ house and asked to swap coats. Clanwaring said he wanted to be smart for a trip to the cinema and paid Briggs 1s for the exchange. When his original coat was later examined it was stained with paint but no blood. According to the police surgeon the lack of blood did not prove Clanwaring’s innocence, as the killer could have remained blood free.
At 1.30 p.m. Clanwaring returned to his lodgings, which were almost a mile from 70 King Street. He left immediately and returned between 3.20 and 3.30. By the time he came back he had purchased a stock of postcards and told his landlady that an old woman had been murdered. Miss Lawn’s body had been discovered at 3.15 and the police informed at 3.25: the prosecution argued that Clanwaring had somehow heard of the murder before everybody else in Cambridge.
A number of blue Lloyds Bank bags had been found in Miss Lawn’s shop and an identical one had been found in Clanwaring’s possession. Firstly Clanwaring had claimed that he had found it in the street, then changed his story to say that he had taken it from the owner of a street organ when they had both been at the Racehorse pub.
How Clanwaring had gone from being penniless at just before eleven to having over a pound by lunchtime was a mystery. The coincidence of the bank bag, the change of clothes and his presence in King Street were all against him.
In addition Clanwaring was in the habit of talking to anyone prepared to listen to him and once in custody had made comments to fellow prisoners, Glenister, Bingham and Clark, that were described as ‘tantamount to a confession’. On 6 August Clanwaring had said: ‘I’m for it’, and put his hands around his throat. ‘For a watch?’ Glenister asked. Clanwaring had answered: ‘No, Lawn’s job at Cambridge.’
On 20 August Clark testified that Clanwaring had told him: ‘I shall get hung for this, but I have got the ‘tecs set, as there was nobody else there but me.’
Commenting on his conversation with Clark, Clanwaring said that he had not meant to imply that he had ‘done it’ but simply that he would hang if he were found guilty. But all Clanwaring’s denials and claims were met with scepticism and even his own defence described him as ‘The biggest liar I have ever met’.
It took one hour and fifty minutes for Clanwaring to give his evidence. He swore that he had changed coats with Briggs but claimed it had been on the day before the murder. He admitted telling a Mrs Ward that someone had given him £1 but claimed that he had lied.
It was then pointed out to Clanwaring that there was a discrepancy in his evidence. In response he told the judge: ‘Your lordship, I am not a very intelligent man, and I hope you will excuse me saying such a thing, but I can’t penetrate my mind on these actions definitely.’
Clanwaring claimed to have raised money by starting to sell postcards almost immediately after receiving his licence from the mayor. The defence offered no proof of how he had come by enough money to buy his first stock of cards, or of exactly how he had accumulated the money in his possession.
One of the witnesses called by the defence was the Rose and Crown’s barmaid, Edith Rayner, who swore that Clanwaring had been in the pub later than previously testified. She claimed it was between 11.00 and 11.30 a.m., during which time he had bought ale and tried to sell a watch. If true this would have made it impossible for Clanwaring to have locked himself in Miss Lawn’s shop by ten past eleven. Her story was partially corroborated by barman Harry Farrington who had left at 10.55. Clanwaring had not arrived by this time.
The final day of the case was 20 October. Both the prosecution and defence had concluded their arguments and in his summing up the judge asked the jury to concentrate on whether Clanwaring could have been, at the very latest, inside Miss Lawn’s shop at ten past eleven. If he could not have been then Clanwaring was not guilty. He directed them: ‘if they thought he could have been there, this did not prove him guilty of the murder, but the Crown had got so far as “here was a man who, so far as his movements are concerned, might have committed the murder.” But in this he was only one of hundreds, and before they could even then fix him with the guilt they must consider the rest of the circumstances on which the prosecution relied.’
Referring to the statement that placed Clanwaring outside Miss Lawn’s shop between 11.30 and midday the judge asked how likely it was that the murderer would have loitered close by straight after committing the crime. The judge also pointed out that there could be a reasonable explanation for Clanwaring knowing of the murder so soon. And it would have certainly been foolish for Clanwaring to announce that a murder had been committed unless he also knew that the crime had been discovered.
On the statements given by the fellow prisoners from Bedford gaol he reminded the jury that the prisoner had been ‘among men whose moral values are upside down’ adding ‘and you have got to consider, even if these words were said whether this man then, for the first time in his life, was telling the truth, or whether he was bragging and seeking some notoriety’.
It was clear from the judge’s summing up that he felt that Clanwaring should be found not guilty. The jury of eleven men and one woman returned after an hour and thirty-three minutes and at 1.20 p.m. announced that Clanwaring was a free man, to which the judge commented that he was surprised that they had not reached that conclusion sooner. Clanwaring left immediately in the company of his counsel and was reported to have been offered a job as a commissionaire at a picture palace near Leicester Square.
Based on the evidence presented in court the verdict was no doubt correct, especially as it included nothing to link Clanwaring to the crime scene. By the following week the press were already stating that they expected the crime to remain unsolved, implying that
either the guilty man had been cleared or that they knew there were no further leads.
No other person was ever charged with Miss Lawn’s murder. But many questions were left unanswered. Was there one killer or two? It seems reasonable to think that the killer locked the door and took money from the till but why not search the rest of the house? Did something disturb them, and if so, what?
No. 70 King Street still exists but is now a fast food shop and the building has been extended at the rear so that neither the back nor the front bears much resemblance to the shop as it would have been in 1921. However, Milton Walk and the Champion of the Thames pub still exist and the overwhelming feature of King Street is the tiny area into which the buildings are packed. Even the houses opposite are only a few feet away. It is hard to imagine that anyone thought they would be able both to enter and leave the shop without being seen.
If the killer was not an opportunist thief who managed to let a till robbery get horrendously out of hand then what was the real motive for the murder? Miss Lawn had a lot of money hidden in the house and in her post office account but had made no will. According to all those who knew her she was a sweet lady with no enemies. But in spite of this she became the victim in Cambridge’s most notorious unsolved pre-war murder case and 70 King Street remains the little shop of secrets.
Notes
1 Christ’s Piece was known at the time as Christ’s Pieces.
2 Parietal: of or forming the walls of a body cavity, in this case the skull.
3 On 19 January 1917 a fire at a munitions factory ignited 50 tons of TNT, resulting in the largest explosion ever to occur near London. Heard as far afield as Norwich and Southampton, the explosion caused the deaths of seventy-three people and damaged over 60,000 properties. The press announcement read: ‘The Ministry of Munitions regrets to announce that an explosion occurred last evening at a munitions factory in the vicinity of London. It is feared that the explosion was attended by considerable loss of life and damage to property.’
4 Hottentot: a race of people indigenous to South Africa.
13
A DIFFERENT SORT OF FIRST FOR CAMBRIDGE
Douglas Newton Potts lived in Sevenoaks, Kent. He was a brilliant student who had received a scholarship from Lancing and was studying for the Bar. He had arrived at King’s College, Cambridge in October 1929. His father was picking up his college bills and, in addition to this, his scholarship was worth £80 per year.
Although he initially showed promise by the end of the first term he admitted to his father that he had slightly overspent. He had also attracted attention; neither college staff or students seemed to warm to him and felt that he seemed highly strung and slightly affected in both his manner and his dress.
One of the few friendships he managed to forge was with another undergraduate, John Frederick Gerald Newman. Potts was a talented musician and together they formed a dance band that they called the Blue Melodians, in which Potts played drums and piano and sometimes conducted.
Rather than rein in his behaviour, Potts became more eccentric. On 24 May 1930 he and Newman disappeared from college without leave. After a ten-day odyssey they returned to King’s where they went in separate directions, each planning to face their respective tutors. Within a short time, shots rang out. College porters rushed to the scene only to find Potts and his tutor dead and a police sergeant mortally wounded.
The Cambridge town and the university communities were understandably shocked by the tragedy. The following day’s edition of The Cambridge Chronicle printed photographs of the dead tutor, A.F.R. Wollaston, and the wounded policeman, Sergeant F.J. Willis. A third photograph showed King’s College with its flag flying at half-mast. The public would have to wait until the inquest for further details of the murders but the account included this short obituary for Wollaston:
The death of Mr Alexander Frederick Richmond Wollaston is the severest blow to King’s College. ‘He was,’ said the Reverend Eric Milner-White, Dean of King’s, ‘a most delightfully kind person. He was very popular with all sections of the university. Undergraduates were devoted to him and there was not a member of the High Table in any college who received more invitations to dine out. He had a charming wife and two delightful children to whom he was devoted. Mrs Wollaston was in London, away from Cambridge for the day. He had been tutor for two years and the ability he showed in taking over his complicated duties astonished all of us.’
He [Wollaston] was admitted to the college in 1893 and he trained for the medical profession at London Hospital. He was elected a Fellow of King’s College in 1920. Distinguished as medical man, zoologist and botanist, he was a great traveller. He travelled as medical officer and naturalist on expeditions to central Africa and Dutch New Guinea during the years 1905–13. During the war he served as Surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and he was decorated with the Distinguished Service Cross and was mentioned twice in dispatches. He received the Gill Memorial of the Royal Geographical Society in 1914 and the Patrons’ Gold Medal in 1925. He was re-elected Fellow and appointed Tutor of King’s College in 1928. He accompanied the first Mount Everest expedition of 1921. A native of Gloucestershire he had a home in that county. His marriage to Miss Mary Meinertzhagen took place in the College Chapel in 1929.
On the condition of Sergeant Willis the paper wrote: ‘Examination of the police officer showed that he was not so seriously hurt as was at first feared, and it is expected that he will make complete recovery from his wounds.’ Sadly this was not the case; Willis was weak but conscious and managed to make a statement to Chief Inspector Bellamy but, later on the evening of 3 June, his condition deteriorated. He was rushed into surgery but never regained consciousness and died the following day.
A report of the incident appeared in the London press on the evening of the shooting, attracting the attention of a Miss Madge Miller, one of the few people who could shed some light on Potts and his behaviour in the days leading up to the deaths. She was among the witnesses called to the inquest on Friday 6 June, which was held in the Borough Police Court.
On the day of the shooting Wollaston had met 19-year-old Potts in Cambridge and the two of them had gone to the tutor’s rooms at the ground floor of E staircase in the Gibbs Buildings in King’s College. Wollaston had two rooms; the larger was accessible from the hall and led through to the smaller room where Potts and Wollaston met. The second room looked out across the lawns to the River Cam.
Sergeant Willis arrived at 1.30 p.m. with a warrant for Potts’s arrest and the Head Porter, Frederick Nightingale, showed him through to the inner room. According to Nightingale, Wollaston had stood with his back to the fireplace with Potts standing near to him. The porter had left them and the only eyewitness account of what followed was in the statement made by Willis:
I saw him outside Fitzwilliam House. I went to King’s and enquired of Mr Nightingale. I went to the door and saw Mr Wollaston, and showed him the warrant, and he said you had better come in and see him. I went into the room, and Mr Wollaston came in after me. Mr Wollaston was standing with his back to the fireplace. I cautioned him, and began reading the warrant, and said, ‘You will have to come to the police station.’ He whipped out his revolver and fired at me. I pushed Mr Wollaston out of the way. I tried to protect him. He fired at Mr Wollaston and I tried to get at him. I fell over a chair backwards. Another bullet hit me in the left thigh. Mr Wollaston was on the ground behind me. I knew only four shots had been fired, and I thought he had another one for me, so I lay on the ground and kept still, and gradually I turned round and got up.
Willis did not mention the fifth shot. When it came it was in a final act of desperation as Potts turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger. He did not die immediately but fell to the ground with serious head injuries. Willis struggled to the door and put up his hand shouting, ‘Help, help.’ Mr Nightingale ran across to find Willis sinking onto the doorstep groaning: ‘He has shot me, and I shall be dead in ten minutes.’
Police a
nd an ambulance were called, and Constable Brooks accompanied the police ambulance to King’s College. The first victim he saw was Willis lying at the top of some steps. Willis told him that he had been shot in the shoulder and the lower body and that Wollaston and Potts had both also been shot. ‘They are both dead,’ he said. ‘Look after me.’
Willis was taken to Addenbrookes Hospital (then situated opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum in Trumpington Road), and Potts followed. Dr F.B. Parsons examined Wollaston at the scene. He was lying face down and about six feet away from the dying Potts. As Parsons gently turned him over, Wollaston died. The doctor examined the tutor and found that the cause of death was a bullet wound to the chest that had gone through the sternum and embedded itself in his spine. A later examination showed that he had two more bullet wounds, one on the left side of the chest behind the arms and located near the seventh rib and the other on the top of the shoulder.
Dr James McNeil was present when Potts was admitted to hospital at 2 p.m. Potts was ‘profoundly unconscious’ and died at 6 p.m. The cause of death was ‘laceration of the brain from a gunshot wound’.
The first wound Willis had suffered had been the one to his shoulder; the bullet had entered his upper back and exited at the front. The blood loss was small and the doctor concluded that no major vessels had been damaged. But the shot had felled Willis and, while he was on the ground, Potts had fired again. This second bullet had entered the rear of his upper thigh. There was no exit wound because it had travelled upwards into Willis’s body causing extensive internal injuries. He died around 5.30 a.m. on 4 June and Dr Henry Buckley Roderick recorded the cause of death to be ‘shock resulting from a gunshot wound in the perineum’.
