Warwick

by Vanessa Morgan

Meanwhile, Ann’s daughter made her a cup of tea and took it up to her, before going back to bed. She then heard her mother get up and go downstairs, but the following morning Ann was back in bed, where she stayed for the rest of the day and up to midday the next day.

  Over the course of the subsequent few days, the neighbours gossiped that Ann looked just like a ‘lying-in woman’ and they were convinced that she had thrown the baby into the canal. Martha told her what they were saying, to which Ann said, ‘While they are talking about me, let them talk about anyone else – let them talk.’

  * * *

  ‘they were convinced that she had thrown the baby into the canal’

  * * *

  Mr Stephens, the Relieving Officer, said Ann was receiving out-door relief and he had a strong suspicion that she was enceinte. Later, Stephens asked her if she had had a child and Ann said, ‘Well, if I have I must have eaten it.’ The Poor Law stated that if a woman had an illegitimate baby she would not be given relief, so it would not have been in Ann’s best interests if she had given birth illegitimately.

  At the inquest Mr W. Haynes, the coroner, asked why Martha did not say anything when she heard that the child’s body had been found. She said because she didn’t know whether it was Ann’s child, although she was afraid that it was. To Ann’s daughter he said, ‘I suppose you have been told not to say anything?’

  ‘No,’ she replied.

  ‘I think you have,’ he said.

  Haynes was beginning to find that the witnesses were either giving conflicting statements or had corroborated their stories. Ann had been seen washing bed clothes but none of the neighbours were able to agree as to when this had been done.

  Charles Chambers was now working for the Grand Junction Canal Company. He insisted that he only knew Ann as a neighbour, though he had known her all his life and had worked with her husband for five years. He had never said he would marry her and had never been intimate with her, but could not say whether or not anyone else had. He did admit, however, to going to her house on the evening that she was ill. The coroner asked him if he thought Ann had been in the family way, but Charles said he didn’t know anything about it.

  ‘If you do not answer the question I will commit you,’ Haynes told him. Charles said how could he know, he was away from town a lot. The coroner still threatened to commit him if he didn’t answer the question, but Charles maintained he didn’t know – he just thought the same as other people. Three times Haynes asked him if he thought Ann was having a baby but Charles kept saying, ‘I don’t know.’

  It was also implied that Ann killed the child she’d had two years previously and Charles was asked if he had helped. Charles still gave no answer. Finally, Haynes, now exasperated, shouted to the police officer on duty in court, ‘Take that man into custody Mr Hickling!’

  Charles’ mother, Ellen Chambers, who had also visited on the weekend Ann was ill, said she had seen spots of blood on the staircase. Ann’s sister, Mary Benton, also evaded answering the questions posed by Haynes; when asked when she had first noticed her sister had become smaller she would not give a definite answer. Other neighbours said they had seen her at her sister’s house, making the bed, but she said she had not been there that night.

  ‘Well I never heard such gross perjury in my life,’ Haynes announced and continued his questioning.

  ‘Was Ann Osborne very large on the Saturday?’

  ‘About the same as usual.’

  ‘When you saw her on Monday had you any doubt that she had been confined?’

  ‘No I had not.’

  ‘Did you not ask her what she had done with her child?’

  ‘I did not.’

  The coroner then accused her of talking with Ann and Charles on the morning of the inquest and agreeing on a story, but she denied it. With that, the exasperated coroner had her taken into custody as well: ‘Take her away and keep her until she tells the truth, and then she will perhaps think better of it.’

  Later, when Mary was called back, she admitted that Ellen Chambers had told her that her son had said that Ann was in the family way, but Mary was to say nothing about it. Haynes enquired if she had seen the baby: ‘Was there a box in the room?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Well the child was there was it not?’

  ‘I do not know sir.’

  ‘Was it a male or a female child?’

  ‘I never knew sir.’

  Mr Nunn was recalled to confirm whether the baby definitely had survived for a few days.

  ‘From the separation of the naval cord, which is a vital operation, the child must have lived for the process to go on for some days,’ he said. When asked to confirm how long the cord would take to heal, he said it would be five to ten days. The coroner decided to have the baby’s body exhumed for further examination but when Mr Nunn was later recalled he said that the body was now so decayed that it was impossible to make that examination.

  Charles Chambers and Mary Benton were reprimanded and then discharged from custody. Haynes said that Charles had acted in a most disgraceful way, not only before the jury but also toward Ann Osborne. He had left her when he knew what state she was in because he knew, or thought, that she was ‘about to make away with her child’, and if he stayed there he would be considered an accessory.

  The jury now had to consider whether the child that had been found was Ann’s or whether she had been wrongly accused of being confined.

  The coroner’s jury found a case for wilful murder but when the Grand Jury at the assizes returned, they said there wasn’t enough evidence and Ann Osborne was discharged.

  When the coroner in the Ann Osborne case (see chapter seven) discharged the jury he thanked them for the great attention they had paid to the case and said that he hoped the verdict they had arrived at would be the means of stopping a crime of which, he was sorry to say, there were a frightful number of instances in Warwick. In fact, it was only a few months later that the body of another young baby was found, this time in the canal.

  Sometime at the end of October 1862, Police Constable Webb spotted a woman in Linen Street with a baby. Having seen her there frequently he went over to her.

  ‘What, are you here again?’ he said. ‘If I catch you begging I will take you before the Magistrates and have you locked up.’ At this, the woman went away, grumbling.

  PC Webb had seen her in Warwick many times over the previous two months and on many occasions she had been out on the streets as late as one or two o’clock in the morning. The child was often heard crying and he had remonstrated with the woman for not looking after it properly. She said that she had sometimes thought of leaving it in the streets because she couldn’t find her husband and couldn’t look after the baby on her own.

  A few weeks later, on the evening of Saturday 15 November, a young girl heard a splash in the canal near All Saints’ Church. At first she had thought it was her brother who had fallen in but when she went home to raise the alarm found him safe, so forgot about it.

  Four days later, on the Wednesday, boat builder Thomas Williams was working on one of his master’s boats near Emscote Mill, between Leam Bridge and Emscote Bridge. A boatman came past and called out to him, ‘Young man, there’s a child floating in the cut.’ Thomas immediately spotted the body close to where he was and pulled it out. He noticed that it had little clothing on; just a piece of old, lilac-coloured frock wrapped around its body and a blue-striped petticoat, both the size of an older child of about two or three years.

  Emscote Bridge. The mill, now demolished, was on the right.

  The post-mortem was undertaken by Mr T.W. Bullock and he thought the child was about three or four months old. As well as other cuts on the body there was also a two-inch cut above the right eye, which he said ‘appeared to have been inflicted during life’. There was a fracture to the right side of the skull and he said it was this that had caused death. He also added that ‘the body is not at all decomposed and consequently cannot have b
een in the water many days’.

  An inquest took place the next day at the Crown Inn in Coton End, and the coroner, Mr W. Haynes, adjourned it for two weeks for further enquiries to be made, stating that ‘he trusted through the publicity given through the public press, that someone would be enabled, from the description of the dress, to come forward and recognise the body.’ But by now there was hardly any doubt in anyone’s mind that this was the baby Constable Webb had seen with its mother, and before long witnesses came forward saying that they had seen the woman begging in Warwick quite frequently. One witness, Mary Tombe, knew the woman’s name – Ann Jennings.

  Mary lived in Leamington and said she had also seen the man who was supposed to be Ann’s husband. He was a member of the militia and both he and Ann had come to the area seven years previously. He had then gone to Aldershot but Ann frequently returned, and she had lodged with Mary during the early summer and said that the child she had then, called Mary Ann, would have been three years old on its next birthday. She had also appeared to be expecting another child at that time but when questioned about it she said it was nobody’s business. A little later she left to find work in the harvest, saying she would go south of London.

  Mary saw her again in the middle of November. This time Ann was alone and crying, saying that she had lost her child. She said a policeman had taken it from her in London. They had put her in prison for two or three weeks and when she came to look for her child, she hadn’t been able to find it.

  On 22 November, Ann was found in Birmingham and Police Constable Woodward went to arrest her. When he told her why he was arresting her she said, ‘How could I murder my child? It was taken away from me a month or five weeks ago in London by a policeman.’ She kept fervently repeating, ‘No, no a policeman took the child away before my eyes.’

  At the Coroner’s Inquest on 4 December 1862 at the Crown Inn, Haynes told Ann she would have every opportunity to contradict anything the witnesses said. But she began babbling; claiming that the police had taken her child from her and that her dear child was two-and-a-half years old. She described the father as a silly man and officials had great difficulty in getting her to be quiet.

  Eventually witnesses were called upon. Ellen Stinton, who lived in Birmingham, had known Ann for about fifteen years when she lived in Sloane Street with her husband. Ellen thought the couple had been separated about six years, though Ann frequently went back to Birmingham. Ellen had seen her just that October in fact, and Ann had been crying. When Ellen asked her what was wrong, Ann said that her child had been stolen in London. Ellen told the inquest:

  She said she was sitting at a public house door in London, and that the publican gave her half a pint of beer and a penny, and that a man with a wagon and horses came up and gave her some bread and cheese, and that the servant of the house gave her some old boots to put on, and that then a policeman came up and took her into custody, and took her to the station, and kept her there Saturday night, Sunday and Sunday night, and on Monday morning the policeman took her before the magistrates and they asked the policeman what he charged her with, and he said with drunkenness and using abusive language in the street, and the magistrates asked her if that was true, and she said no, for she could not get food for herself and her baby, leave alone get drink, and that she fled at the policeman intending to strike him and that they put her below, and that they put her into a cell during the night, and that some time in the night two policemen came in and told her to get up for supper. She told them she did not want any supper, but they were to leave her alone as she was. With that one put his hand on her mouth and the other took her child away from her, and that she made great noise through the night, but that they none of them answered her; and that in the morning they unlocked her cell and put her into a prisoner’s van and that she began to scream and cry then for Mary Ann, and that the policeman then put his hand on her mouth, and that she never saw the child after. [sic]

  Ann said that people would probably say that ‘she had made away with her,’ but she didn’t care what people thought, ‘they could mind their own business,’ she had said. Ellen said that for the last six years Ann had often sat on a step outside, ‘night after night, moaning and crying, and at intervals singing about her husband’s ill treatment of her.’ Police would move her on but she would return, scolding the police for disturbing her.

  She had often spent the night in the tramp room at the Birmingham workhouse. Emma Lowther, the under tramp mistress, mentioned that the last time Ann had been there, in August, she had two children with her; a child of about two or three and a baby in her arms. Robert Hodden, Master of the Solihull workhouse, said she had also been there in August with one child, but that she appeared to be expecting another. She was back in Solihull on 22 October but had no child with her and he did not think anything of this, as tramps travelling together would often share their children in order to get relief from the workhouse.

  * * *

  ‘night after night, moaning and crying’

  * * *

  Other witnesses, however, confirmed that Ann had been seen with a baby just prior to the body being found. Miss Jarrett, licensee of the George Inn, remembered Ann frequenting the pub in mid-October, as it was around the time they first started lighting the fire. A servant at the inn, Susan Kightley, also said she had seen Ann there at the time, and that she had half a pint of beer. It was noticed that she was carrying a baby with her, so was told to go and sit by the fire. Susan saw that it was a little girl and that she was wearing a ‘blue striped and white petticoat’.

  The inquest into the baby’s death lasted five days and by the end numerous witnesses had come forward stating that they had seen Ann in various places at various times. It was soon discovered that Ann was the mother to four children, one of which had been taken by the father, but the other three, including Mary Ann and the baby, had disappeared. Witnesses also testified that the clothes worn on the body appeared similar to clothes worn by Mary Ann when she was last seen.

  But this was not a simple open and shut case. The coroner pointed out the absence of any real evidence, apart from Susan Kightley, who had recognised the petticoat. He commented on Ann’s movements over the last few months and that at times she had a child with her, and at times she did not. Haynes reminded the jury not to attach too much importance on the actual dates, which did conflict on occasions, stating that, had it not been for the last witness (Susan Kightley), it would have been his duty to have told the jury that they had very little evidence to go upon. But now it was proved that she had a child with her; and now she had no child. Then what had become of that child? The jury deliberated for a considerable amount of time and in the end found Ann guilty of murdering her child.

  At the Warwick Assizes on 4 August 1863, Mr Justice Williams, in his address to the jury on opening the trials, said, ‘The two first cases may be expunged from the calendar, as the first prisoner, Ann Jennings, has been removed to a lunatic asylum; and the second, William Baxter, is dead.’

  Ann was admitted to Warwick Lunatic Asylum in Hatton on 26 January 1863. A letter from the office of George Grey, Secretary of State, stated that she had been certified by Justices of the Peace Richard Greaves and E. Wheeler, and surgeons Samuel Jefferson and John Nunn, who found ‘that Ann Jennings who stands committed in the gaol for the county of Warwick for trial on a charge of infanticide has become insane.’

  In the early hours of Sunday, 16 July 1865, the peace and quiet of Monk Street was shattered by the sound of shouting and gunshots. Michael Welch of Crompton Row, just off Monk Street, heard George London calling someone a ‘b____ highway robber’. A few minutes later he heard the shots and ran out of his house. London, who was holding a gun, was fighting with another man, who was struggling to take the gun from him. Welch intervened and managed to get the gun from London, which he later handed to police.

  The other man was William Coates, a sailmaker from Saltisford. Coates was married to Penelope and they had six ch
ildren, but it seems he was also seeing another woman; someone who George London had once been in a relationship with, but who had ended it in favour of William Coates.

  Charles Clarke, a groom from Rugby, was also out in the street. He had left his house when he first heard the shouting, and saw London standing opposite No. 10 Monk Street with a gun in his hand, saying he would kill Coates if he came out. For five minutes London kept challenging Coates to come out and when he did, London raised the gun and fired. Coates’ coat was set alight by the gunshot and he seemed badly injured. When asked why he hadn’t intervened, Clarke said that he was afraid he would get shot himself.

  George London, aged forty-seven, was lodging at the Lamp Tavern on Bowling Green Street, but was visiting someone at number 16 Monk Street. London had quite a reputation, as he had been bound over to keep the peace several times for threatening to shoot the police and other people. With him in the house at the time was Charles Underhill, a labourer, who said that at about one in the morning someone had come to the door and London had answered it. Underhill could hear voices but couldn’t decipher what was being said, or who was at the door. After a while, London took a gun out of his coat pocket and put it together. He followed the man out of the door, saying, ‘You b____ I’m after you,’ and shut the door behind him. Five minutes later, Underhill heard the gunshot and rushed out into the street. A group of five or six men were already out in the street and were holding London and Coates apart.

  The redeveloped Monk Street area.

  Ann Sheasby of No. 12 Monk Street said she had heard swearing, and when she went outside to investigate saw London standing outside No. 10. The door was shut and London was shouting, ‘You b____, if you come out I will shoot you.’ She saw Coates come out, but she did not hear what was said between the two men. She saw London raise his gun and fire at Coates, which set his coat on fire. As she helped to put the fire out, Welch took the gun from London, who then fled the scene.