The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective

by Payne, Chris

  During this period Clarke’s name was associated, in the press and court proceedings, with several arrests and successful prosecutions for theft.52 Although little or nothing stands out, or helps to explain why Clarke was transferred to the Scotland Yard Detective Department, it is probable that Clarke was given the opportunity to undertake some plain-clothes work within S Division (as was occasionally available), and had impressed the divisional superintendent sufficiently to recommend him for a transfer to Scotland Yard when a vacancy arose. Another possible clue to Clarke’s transfer to Scotland Yard comes from his own police contacts. In 1877, the head of the detective department, Superintendent Williamson, was to recall in evidence at the Old Bailey that he had known Clarke ‘over twenty years’. Thus Williamson, who was greatly influential in the history of the detective department, might have had some specific reasons to recommend that Clarke should join the small group of detectives at the Yard. Whatever the factor that triggered his transfer, Sergeant George Clarke moved to the detective department in A Division on 19 May 1862, after a length of service at which many policemen would be seeking to leave the force. He would now receive a significantly improved salary of £2 2s a week, placing him financially just within the economic definition of the ‘lower-middle classes’ for that time.

  The Scotland Yard Detective Department

  After the disbanding of the Bow Street Runners in 1839 there was no group of detectives working in the Metropolitan Police area, though one former Runner, Nicholas Pearce, had become an inspector attached to A Division in 1840 with special responsibilities for watching the activities of London’s habitual criminals and investigating certain cases of murder or other serious crimes.53 By 1842, an appalling muddle in the police investigation of the murder of Jane Good by Daniel Good, together with some other unsatisfactory incidents, had finally encouraged the Home Office to sanction a small detective force.54 It is not completely clear whether the earlier reluctance had been attributable to the Home Office, to the dragging of feet by the two commissioners, or a combination of the two. However in his authoritative book on Policing Victorian London, Phillip Smith seems to lay the responsibility firmly at the door of the commissioners; quoting from the Victorian social reformer Sir Edwin Chadwick in the 1840s: ‘I know from Sir C. Rowan and Mr Richard Mayne that they disliked detection on principle, and only yielded to its adoption on what they deemed superior authority.’55 The new detective department was created on 15 August 1842 and it was directly responsible to the commissioners. The original staff complement was eight men (two inspectors and six sergeants), which was temporarily increased to ten in 1856 (three inspectors and seven sergeants), the same number as when Clarke joined the detectives in 1862.56 The branch appears to have had no fixed name in those early days, being referred to variously as the detective office, department, force or branch.57

  From today’s perspective it seems incredible that in 1842 there were only eight men in plain clothes at Scotland Yard to investigate every case of crime committed in London.58 Some plain-clothes detection work was done outside the detective department, within the divisions, from 1846 onwards, but very few specifically plain-clothes men were used in this role.59 In addition, Commissioner Mayne’s limited enthusiasm for this approach became clear in January 1854 (by which time about 100 plain-clothes men were being used across divisions), when he reminded superintendents that ‘there is no regulation of the Service authorising the employment of Police in plain clothes’ and asked for reports to be made when they were used.60

  The first eight detectives employed within the new Scotland Yard Detective Department in 1842 were: Inspectors Nicholas Pearce (the former Bow Street Runner) and John Haynes; Sergeants Braddick, Stephen Thornton, William Gerrett, Frederick Shaw, Jonathan Whicher and Charles Goff.61 Several of these men were soon to become household names (albeit in slightly modified form), as a result of Charles Dickens’ interest in the detective police, which he explained in 1850 in Household Words:

  The Detective Force organised since the establishment of the existing Police, is so well chosen and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workmanlike manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of the public, that the public really do not know enough of it, to know a tithe of its usefulness. Impressed with this conviction, and interested in the men themselves, we represented to the authorities at Scotland Yard, that we should be glad, if there were no official objection, to have some talk with the Detectives. A most obliging and ready permission being given, a certain evening was appointed with a certain Inspector for a social conference between ourselves and the Detectives, at The Household Words Office in Wellington Street, Strand, London.62

  By the date of the detectives’ visit to Wellington Street only Thornton, Shaw and Whicher of the original 1842 team were still in post (plus Inspector Haynes who was unavailable). Others attending were a new inspector, Charles Field, and two new sergeants, Smith and Kendall. In Dickens’ anecdotes published after the meeting, the detectives became loosely disguised under the pseudonyms he gave them. Thus, Field became ‘Wield’ (and was subsequently used by Dickens as the model for Inspector Bucket in Bleak House), Thornton became ‘Dornton’, Whicher became ‘Witchem’, Smith became ‘Mith’, Kendall became ‘Fendall’ and Shaw became ‘Straw’. Dickens also met another senior policeman, Robert Walker (to whom he gave the pseudonym ‘Inspector Stalker’); Walker was not a member of the detective department but a senior member of the A Division (Whitehall) executive team.63

  When Clarke transferred to the detective department in 1862, he would have found Thornton, Whicher and Walker still at work, and it is therefore of particular interest to see how Dickens assessed them in 1850:

  Sergeant Dornton about fifty years of age, with a ruddy face and a high sunburnt forehead, has the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army … He is famous for steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, from small beginnings, working on from clue to clue until he bags his man. Sergeant Witchem, shorter and thicker-set, and marked with the small-pox, has something of a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were engaged in deep arithmetical calculations. He is renowned for his acquaintance with the swell mob [pickpockets]. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman – in appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly trained schoolmaster, from the Normal Establishment at Glasgow.64

  The Apprentice Detective

  When Clarke turned up for work as a temporary detective sergeant, on the morning of Monday 19 May 1862, he would have found himself occupying a room in Old Scotland Yard which he would share with the other detective sergeants. A future colleague of Clarke’s later described one aspect of the sergeant’s room: ‘Around the room overhead are a number of plaster casts of the heads of notorious criminals, and hanging at full length beneath some of these are the ghastly looking ropes which have been used in their execution.’65 Aged 43, he was probably amongst the oldest of the detective sergeants when he joined the department. Indeed, on his first day at work at Old Scotland Yard he might already have deserved one of the nicknames that he was later to receive: ‘The Old Man’. Unlike several of his new colleagues, he had arrived at Scotland Yard with twenty-two years’ familiarity with the streets of London, including thirteen years when he had pounded a beat and a further nine years when, as a sergeant, he would have supervised other constables engaged in that function. His capacity to cope with the physical and mental pressures associated with those tasks, and his practical experience of crime on the streets, would serve him well in his future career as a detective.

  In 1862 the staffing of the detective department had gone through some further changes, but the complement of ten detectives included Inspectors Thornton and Whicher, together with Sergeants Robinson, Adolphus Williamson, Richard Tanner, William Palmer, Alexander Thomson and James Thomson.66 Clarke filled the temporary sergeant vacancy; the temporary inspector position remained unfilled between 1859 and 1864.67 Sergeant Pa
lmer had earlier that year been transferred from Chatham Dockyard.68 James Thomson had only arrived in February 1862. Regarded as a well-educated ‘gentleman-copper’, Thomson had originally been posted to C Division (St James) but, in less than a year, he had left the Metropolitan Police and moved first to the Devon constabulary before joining the Hampshire force. Deciding to rejoin the Metropolitan Police, he made a special application direct to Sir Richard Mayne, and was appointed as a constable in the detective department in February 1862, the next day being promoted to sergeant.69 This was quite a different career progression to that of Clarke and illustrative of the way in which Mayne was prepared to adapt the recruitment procedures when it came to appointing detectives, creating an eclectic mix of experience and skills in the process.

  Of the detectives at Scotland Yard in 1862, the most significant in Clarke’s future career was Adolphus Frederick Williamson, known as ‘Dolly’ to friends and colleagues. Shortly after Clarke arrived, Williamson was promoted to acting inspector, at the age of only 32.70 He was a Scot, whose father had been Superintendent of T Division (Hammersmith). Dolly Williamson’s first job was as a temporary clerk in the War Department before he decided to follow his father into the Metropolitan Police in 1850. Initially working as an assistant clerk in P Division (Camberwell), he gained promotion and joined the detective department as a sergeant in 1852.71 Williamson had worked with Inspector Whicher on cases such as the Road Hill House murder.72 During Clarke’s time at Scotland Yard Williamson was to become the head of the detective department, achieving the ranks of chief inspector, superintendent and chief constable en route. He had a great capacity for hard work, combining it with a dry sense of humour. As time permitted he is said to have been a powerful sculler and a devotee of the annual Oxford-Cambridge boat race but, like Wilkie Collins’ ‘Sergeant Cuff’, Williamson’s principal relaxation was gardening.73 Though Clarke was about twelve years older than Williamson, and always at a lower rank, the two men were to develop a close relationship as colleagues and friends. Indeed they eventually lived very near to one another, with Clarke’s house at 20 Great College Street, Westminster (which he rented from the late 1860s), being just round the corner from Williamson’s in Smith Square. Their relationship was to stand Clarke in good stead throughout his next thirteen years at the Yard, and particularly when times got hard, as they certainly did in August 1877. Richard Tanner also worked closely with Clarke in the early stages of Clarke’s detective career. Thirteen years younger than Clarke, he was described by a friend and colleague as keen and lively, and a favourite of the commissioner.74

  In 1862 Commissioner Mayne was the dominant figure who loomed over the small detective team. He directed the strategic priorities of the detectives, as well as the uniformed force, and was known for his long working hours and attention to detail. Under Mayne’s overall direction all serious investigation of crime in the metropolitan area involved the men of the detective department. If anything serious happened in a division it was notified to the Scotland Yard Detective Department and a detective officer was ordered to make enquiries and to report.75 On occasion, a detective would also be deployed to help with serious crimes committed outside of London.76

  As a new detective sergeant, Clarke probably shadowed the two inspectors for his first few weeks in the job. The daily operational procedures of the detective department in 1862 are not well documented but, by 1877 at least, men were expected to report daily to their superior officer and to enter into an entry book in their own handwriting the work that they were engaged on each day.77 In addition, office records were kept in a case book and office diary, and regular case reports were written by individual officers for the senior officer in the department, and for the commissioner.78 Attributes that Clarke would have needed to develop would have included surveillance skills and useful contacts, including informers. Out of the office, the surveillance of suspected criminals was a regular chore on many cases. As Andrew Lansdowne (another future colleague of Clarke’s) commented: ‘watching is always a tedious business; when, day after day, no result appears, it is enough to discourage the most sanguine; but one must accustom oneself to monotony to get on as a detective.’79 During such activities, the use of disguises was not encouraged by Mayne or Williamson.80 Informers were regarded as an essential part of the detectives’ toolbox, though to be used with caution. Writing in 1904, George Greenham, a colleague of Clarke’s from 1873 onwards, explained his viewpoint on informers and their associated problems:

  One of the pests of society an officer has to meet with is the voluntary ‘informer’, who for monetary consideration offers to discover the criminal wanted. To place too much confidence in such a person is, to say the least, risky, for he will often draw small sums on account for current expenses, and finally deceive you. And yet one cannot altogether ignore him or do without him.81

  The costs of informers and the recovery of these costs and other work-related expenses often left the detectives out of pocket, as the reimbursement of expenses by the Yard’s administrators appears to have been a challenging process. Williamson commented in 1877: ‘I am perfectly certain that men often will not put down items of expenses, because they know that they will be disputed, and they would rather lose money than enter into a dispute upon them … I consider it most unfair.’82 It seems likely that the grudging attitude towards expenses stemmed from Mayne’s attitude to these matters (’it is a mistake to give men too much money’), implemented by an eagle-eyed chief clerk.83 The consequences of this approach were considerable. At one extreme, Edwin Coathupe, who became a sergeant in the department in 1863, stated that ‘I had £2 a week and used to spend £3 of my own money to be able to keep myself respectable’.84 As a man of independent means, Coathupe had that luxury. Others (including Clarke) did not have that elasticity in their own finances and either had to fight their corner on the expenses issue or had to rely on additional sources of income to offset their expenditure. One such source was gratuities from those members of the public who wished to acknowledge good service. Subject to the approval of the commissioner, these gratuities could be retained by the individual detectives, and many saw them as an essential subsidy to compensate for the difficulty of recovering their full expenses. The consequences were almost inevitable:

  [Gratuities] used to be the great evil of Scotland Yard; not one of the officers of Scotland Yard would ever look at a case of picking up a thief in the streets; it was beneath them. ‘It does not pay’ used to be the answer. ‘I can wait and get a case from Mr So-and-so, or Mr So-and-so’s solicitor which will bring me in £5 or £7’. Those people would hang about the office for five or six days with the hope of getting a case of that kind.85

  Such was the world in which Clarke now worked, and in which he had to learn on the job because, like others who found themselves in the detective department in the 1860s, he would not have received any formal training in detective work. Fortunately, he must have done enough in the first few months to satisfy his superiors, as his post was made permanent on 29 November 1862.86

  The first press reports of cases involving Clarke after he joined Scotland Yard appeared early in 1863 and involved crimes in cities in the north of England. The first of these was a bank robbery in Manchester carried out by two men, Potter and Welby, who had drilled through to the bank vaults from an adjoining cellar. Having removed some £1,000 in gold and silver (worth £43,000 today), the men were seen to catch a train to London. Likely train destinations and police forces were alerted by telegraph. Welby got off the train at Crewe and was immediately arrested; Potter was arrested by Clarke at Camden Town station (where the trains always stopped for ticket inspection). Clarke found that Potter was carrying a portmanteau containing £346 4s 7d from the robbery. He gave evidence to this effect at the magistrate’s hearing in Manchester and at the Crown Court trial, when both men were found guilty and each was sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude.87

  The second case involved David Charles Lloyd, who had w
orked as a clerk for a share broker in Newcastle and had dealt with the purchase of £600 of stock in the North Eastern and Berwick Railway Company for a client, James Oliver. After leaving his employment Lloyd had approached the registrars of the stock, claiming to be James Oliver, and asked for a new stock certificate, ‘as he had lost his during a recent move to a new address’. On receipt of the certificate, Lloyd had then attempted to sell the stock, forging James Oliver’s signature in the process, in an attempt to realise the £600 plus any profit. However, an alert clerk suspected fraud and the sale was stopped at the company’s office. Superintendent Hawker of the North Eastern Railway police was then asked to track down the fraudster in collaboration with Clarke. The two men tracked Lloyd to the Gloucester Hotel, Brighton, where Clarke arrested him on 2 June 1863. Clarke gave evidence at the Bow Street Police Court hearing on 9 June and at the Old Bailey trial on 13 July; Lloyd was found guilty and received a sentence of five years’ penal servitude.88 Forgery was also the basis of a third case, where Clarke travelled to Hull on 10 January 1864 to arrest Charles Alberti for ‘forging two checks [sic]’ for £94 and £214. Alberti pleaded guilty at his trial at the Old Bailey and he was also sentenced to five years’ penal servitude.89