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

by Payne, Chris

It seems more than a coincidence that Clarke’s first three documented cases after joining the detective department involved a link with the north of England, and it may be that each detective sergeant had some liaison responsibility for different sectors of the country. Likewise, all three cases had a link to financial institutions, and it is probable that some ‘division of labour’ was established within the detective department on the nature of the cases that individual detectives would take responsibility for. However, as Clarke’s career developed, he would become involved in investigations of a very diverse range of crimes.

  During 1863 and 1864 some further staffing changes were made at the detective department. Inspector Whicher retired on 19 March 1864.90 Whicher later became a private detective and Clarke would meet up with him again, in a major investigation in 1873. Whicher’s position was filled by the promotion of Sergeant James Thomson who, like Williamson earlier, had clearly been marked out for fast-tracking.91 Williamson’s own promotion to inspector was confirmed on 6 August 1863 and Richard Tanner was also promoted to acting inspector on 25 March 1863, an appointment that was confirmed later, in March 1864. These changes restored the full complement of three inspectors.

  With some sergeant vacancies also arising during 1863 and 1864, Mayne took the unusual step of appointing Sergeant Coathupe as a direct entrant to the detective department in April 1863. Coathupe had no previous experience as a policeman but had applied indirectly to Mayne through a family friend; he had previously qualified as a surgeon and had been practising as such in Chippenham. Though perhaps the first direct entrant to the department, Coathupe would not be the last.92 Such appointments undoubtedly created tensions; one later appointed direct entrant, George Greenham, confirmed that there was internal jealousy of those men brought in from outside, and James Thomson, one of the ‘insiders’ (though with much less police experience than Clarke), expressed the view that ‘taking people into the service who have no police experience is a great mistake’.93 Coathupe only stayed in the department for three years before becoming head of the detective force at Manchester and, later, head constable in Bristol. Despite this rapid career progression, James Thomson (who seems never to have been at a loss for a robust and dismissive comment on anything and anybody) commented that Coathupe ‘was an amateur policeman and he will be an amateur policeman to the end of his days’.94

  Sergeant Coathupe’s arrival was followed by the appointment in October 1863 of 22-year-old Nathaniel Druscovich to fill the sergeant vacancy created by Tanner’s promotion.95 Druscovich, formerly and briefly a constable in C Division, was born in England but had a Moldavian father and an English mother. He also spent some of his youth in Wallachia.96 He was fluent in several languages, albeit not in English, and his appointment caused a further flutter in the Scotland Yard dovecote. Speaking in 1877 with the benefit of some recent hindsight, James Thomson said:

  My individual opinion is that it is unwise to let foreigners have anything to do with our police. They think a great deal of themselves, they take too much upon themselves and they get into difficulties. I was strongly opposed to Druscovich coming to Scotland Yard and I advised them at the time not to have him … I thought there was a good deal of the foreigner in him, because when he first came to Scotland Yard … his English was almost broken English.97

  To complete the staff changes, Sergeant John Mulvany was transferred to the department in April 1864 from S Division. Born in Chelsea, Mulvany had joined the police in 1848 and was now 37 years old and therefore, like Clarke, one of the ‘old guard’.98 Precisely what Clarke thought of his new workmates is not recorded but, with almost twenty-four years’ police experience under his belt, he had more in common with Mulvany than with Coathupe or Druscovich. By 1864 the department contained a very diverse range of natural ability, experience and skills. Williamson, Clarke, Druscovich and Palmer would remain together for the next thirteen years.

  While the detection of crime was the principal objective of the department, not all of its responsibilities were restricted to dealing with criminal cases. There were also activities of national and imperial importance to deal with, including State visits by royalty and international political figures. The detectives were also frequently deployed to work with the uniformed police in the management of public order both in London and at the major horse-racing meetings. In addition, private citizens were entitled to purchase the services of the police for investigations or for the policing of events, subject to the agreement of the commissioner.

  During Clarke’s first two years at Scotland Yard, the most important political visit was by Giuseppe Garibaldi in April 1864. Garibaldi, the Italian freedom fighter, was a popular hero amongst the anti-Catholic majority of Victorian Britain.99 However, the Irish-Catholic community did not share this enthusiasm and, in September and October 1863, the Metropolitan Police had found it difficult to deal with violence in Hyde Park when pro-Garibaldi demonstrators were attacked by Irish-Catholics.100 It was therefore likely that the detective department were working behind the scenes to help prevent further violent outbreaks during his visit in 1864. Despite Garibaldi attracting large crowds, events seemed to have passed off reasonably peacefully, partly due to the fact that Garibaldi cut short his visit on health grounds.

  There is no doubt that Clarke was actively involved during his detective career in the management of betting crime and other villainy at horse-racing meetings. Williamson is recorded as saying that ‘you want a man who is a little rough to go to races, and who will hold his own’, and it seems that Clarke and Tanner both fitted this description.101 Tanner was the detective who was most frequently deployed to take the lead at the major race meetings, until he retired in July 1869, and Tanner and Clarke were often on duty together at racecourses.102 The Epsom meeting, in particular, was a huge public event; Derby Day was the highlight, invariably patronised by the Prince of Wales and by the swell-mob and other assorted criminals and ‘roughs’. For the police present, such events could present a challenging and hostile environment. Tanner recorded in his personal notebook such an occasion at Epsom in 1857:

  Robert Travers a pugilist apprehended by myself on the 29th May 1857 for violently assaulting me on Epsom Race Course (Oaks Day); taken before B. Coombe Esq. at Southwark Police Court and fined 40/- [shillings] or one months imprisonment. Remarks. The Races were over and a fight was got up between two roughs. Travers was seconding one, and Inspector Henry Smith and myself went into the crowd, when Plumb the jockey and Smith fell out. Plumb told Travers his grievance and he came and struck me to the ground insensible.103

  Precisely how Tanner, from his unconscious state, then apprehended Travers is not explained. However, such events were not uncommon, as another detective, John Meiklejohn, also described. After arresting a man at Epsom on Derby Day who had already thrown him to the ground once, Meiklejohn recalled:

  Perhaps I had somewhat relaxed my vigilance on the prisoner’s assurance that he would accompany me quietly. At any rate, we had not gone many yards when, by a sudden wrestling trick with which I was unfamiliar he again brought me to the ground with a crash. I was dazed but still retained my grip. There was no hope of assistance in such a crowd. It was rather hostile than otherwise. But regaining my feet I concluded to bring matters to a decided issue, and set about him until he was as tame as a rabbit. When after some further difficulty I got him to the station at the back of the Grandstand, my clothes were hanging in ribbons and his eyes were completely bunged up. Even then he was not entirely subdued, for when the Serjeant [sic] attempted to search him he sent that valued officer rolling down the steps of the Station like a football.104

  Like Tanner and Meiklejohn, Clarke must have learnt how to handle the more physical elements of his job. However, physical hazards were not the only concern, and Coathupe was later to comment that the employment of detectives at racecourses exposed them ‘to such temptations that they were liable to become mixed up with transactions which were not creditable’.105

 
As a further illustration of the nature of Scotland Yard detectives’ work, their services could be purchased by private individuals with the commissioner’s permission. One such occasion arose in June 1864 when Tanner and Clarke were sent in plain clothes to attend and provide security at the fête and fancy bazaar at Orléans House, Twickenham, arranged by the Duc d’Aumale. The Duc’s father was the last King of France, whose abdication in 1848 had led to the French Second Republic when Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected president and later became Emperor Napoleon III.106 The Duc and his family had sought sanctuary in England, and required a detective presence to help dissuade and to deal with any discontent French republicans who might appear at the fête. Fortunately, it seems that the fête passed off peacefully.

  By June 1864, Clarke’s ‘apprenticeship’ as a detective had come to an end, and he was shortly to be moved on to bigger and better things.

  2

  A MURDEROUS YEAR

  1864

  Another base and dreadful murder

  Now again, alas has been,

  One of the most atrocious murders

  It is, as ever yet was seen;

  Poor Thomas Briggs, how sad to mention

  Was in a first-class carriage slain,

  Between Old Ford and Hackney Wick,

  Which caused excitement, care and pain

  Anonymous1

  The North London Railway Murder

  On the evening of Saturday 9 July 1864 in the gathering dark at Hackney Wick station, two bank clerks, Henry Vernez and Sydney Jones, entered an unoccupied first-class compartment of the slightly delayed 9.45 p.m. train from Fenchurch Street to Chalk Farm. Noticing a bag on the seat near the door, Jones moved it before sitting down, only to discover that there was fresh blood on his hand. Alerted to this, his colleague immediately called the train guard Benjamin Ames who, with the aid of his hand lamp, found in the compartment a hat and walking stick in addition to the bag. There was blood on all these items, on the seats and trickling down the glass of the window.2 In the words of a subsequent newspaper report, the compartment ‘was saturated with blood’.3 Not unreasonably suspecting foul play, Ames locked the compartment doors, telegraphed Chalk Farm station and stayed with the train to its final destination before providing a full report to the stationmaster.

  That same night, on the London-bound track, a train of empty carriages left Hackney Wick station at 10.20 p.m. Before reaching Bow station the engine driver, Alfred Ekin, noticed a large dark object lying between the tracks. Alerting his guard, William Timms, who was in the brake van, the train was stopped and reversed. Between the tracks the two men found the unconscious body of a man lying on his back, with his head towards Hackney. With the help of others who had arrived at the scene, including P.C. Edward Dougan, the body was carried to the Mitford Castle public house nearby. P.C. Dougan searched the man’s pockets:

  and found four sovereigns and some keys in the left-hand side trousers pocket, and in the vest pocket a florin and half of a first-class ticket of the North London Railway. In the right-hand side trousers pocket there were 10s. 6d. in silver and copper, some more keys, a silver snuffbox, and a number of letters and papers, and a silk handkerchief, and a diamond ring on the little finger which I took away. There was a gold fastening attached to his waistcoat, but I could not undo it.4

  By 11 p.m. a local surgeon, Alfred Brereton, had arrived. He found that the man had many serious head wounds but was still alive. The surgeon’s attempts to revive the patient failed and he remained unconscious. The head wounds had arisen as a result of two main traumas; those on the top of the head had been caused by a blunt instrument while those on the left side of the head were consistent with a fall from a moving railway carriage. Clearly the man had been the victim of a violent assault, and it took little time for the connection to be made between the blood-soaked train compartment and the body on the railway track.

  During the early morning of Sunday 10 July the man was identified as Thomas Briggs, 69 years old, a highly respected chief clerk in the bank of Messrs Robarts, Curtis & Co. of Lombard Street, coincidentally the same bank as that which employed the two clerks who had first entered the blood-splattered train compartment at Hackney. Briggs was well known as a frequent traveller on the North London Railway between Fenchurch Street and Hackney Wick. His son, Thomas James Briggs, was quickly contacted and arrived at the Mitford Castle at 2 a.m. Arrangements were made to transfer Briggs to his home at Clapton Square, Victoria Park, where he died at a quarter to midnight on the Sunday night. The police now had a murderer to find, and also had to cope with the considerable public reaction to the fact that this was the first murder that had taken place on a British train.

  George Clarke would soon have heard the news of the murder at the office in Scotland Yard. However, he would not have immediately appreciated the ultimate extent of his involvement in the case. Indeed, Clarke was not involved in the initial inquiries. As the murder had occurred in East London, the first responsibility for the case fell on K Division (based at West Ham), under Superintendent Howie. Howie had been a policeman for twenty-eight years, and superintendent for twelve of them, and was only nine months away from his retirement, but his last few months were to prove eventful.5

  Inspector Walter Kerressey, of Bow Police Station, was the first senior officer on the scene having been called at an early stage to the Mitford Castle by P.C. Dougan on the night of 9 July. Kerressey, a 43-year-old Irishman from Cappoquin, had joined the Metropolitan Police ten years after Clarke but had already been an inspector for five years.6 On the morning of Sunday 10 July, Kerressey examined the train compartment at Bow station before visiting Briggs at his home, where ‘he was then alive but insensible’.7 The items recovered from the train compartment were shown to ‘young Mr Briggs’ who identified the stick and bag but, to everyone’s surprise, told the police that the hat, a black beaver, was not his father’s.8 It also became clear that a valuable gold watch and chain that had been regularly worn by the elder Thomas Briggs had not been found on the body. This suggested that theft was one possible motive for the murderous assault, albeit that more than £4 in cash had been found apparently untouched in Briggs’ pockets. From these early observations the search was set in motion to locate Briggs’ missing watch and chain, to identify the person who had left an unknown hat at the scene of the crime and to locate a bell-crowned hat, made by the hatter Daniel Digance of 18 Royal Exchange, which Thomas Briggs was known to have been wearing on the day he was assaulted. As later events proved, it was the hats and the watch that provided the key evidence, ultimately linking the murderer and the railway compartment. While K Division led the initial enquiries, they did not hold this responsibility for long. On Monday 11 July Commissioner Mayne appointed Inspector Tanner to take over the investigation.9 He was to be assisted in this task by Clarke and the K Division team.

  The extent of public concern about the Briggs murder was soon evident from the reaction of the press, highlighting the public fear of being attacked in railway compartments which, in those days, were cut off from one another and had no emergency communication system. The Times was amongst the first to comment on this aspect:

  … all of us are liable to find ourselves in positions where we might easily be murdered for the sake of a purse or a gold watch. A railway carriage is a place where we are cut off for a time from all chance of assistance, and this feeling of helplessness in case of emergency has been a bugbear to many nervous travellers, male as well as female. Without the means of communicating with the guard we are almost at the mercy of fire, collisions, and fellow-passengers. This last danger is to most minds by far the most intolerable of the three. The idea of … being shut up with a murderer is still more intolerable. Highwaymen were bad enough, but they rushed out at you from behind a hedge, instead of quietly taking their tickets and seating themselves beside you in the same carriage … For some months to come travellers by night trains will probably scan their companions narrowly before ent
ering a railway carriage. The best antidote to any such panic would be the speedy apprehension of the criminals, and this we trust we may very shortly have to report.10

  Fortunately, an important witness came forward on 12 July after a combination of intense newspaper coverage and the posting of bills describing the missing watch and chain and offering a reward totalling £300. A silversmith and jeweller of 55 Cheapside, with the somewhat unfortunate name of John Death (which he apparently preferred to pronounce as ‘Deeth’11), contacted the police to report that on 11 July a man had been served by his brother Robert who had exchanged a 15-carat-gold watch chain resembling the one stolen from Thomas Briggs. Death’s description of the man was ‘about 30 years old, 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high, with a sallow complexion and thin features. He is a foreigner, and is supposed to be a German, but speaks good English. He wore a black frock coat and waistcoat, dark trousers, and a black hat.’12 In exchange for the £3 10s value of the watch chain, the man had purchased another chain and a ring which had been taken away by the foreigner in a small box.

  There then followed some frustrating days for the police investigation with plenty of false leads being received from the press and public, or as the papers of the day expressed it: ‘the police have of course received the usual number of communications from madmen and practical jokers.’13 It does not take much imagination to paint a mental picture of the workload of Clarke and other members of the small police team, spending long hours ploughing through piles of correspondence, looking for new leads, locating and interviewing potential new witnesses and following up information on suspects from as far afield as Scotland. At least one individual was arrested and Death was called in to identify him, but it proved not to be the prime suspect that they were seeking. However, things took a turn for the better on 18 July when a London cabman, Jonathan Matthews, emerged with evidence that was to transform the course and location of the investigation.