Warwick

by Vanessa Morgan

  On Saturday, 9 January 1892 the Leamington Spa Courier reported that: ‘The Epiphany Quarter Sessions for the county of Warwickshire were opened on Tuesday morning at the Shire Hall, Warwick.’ On opening the sessions, Mr J.S. Dugdale, QC told the jury that ‘their labours would not be heavy. There were nine cases to come before them, but only one of these was a felony case, the others were all charges of misdemeanour.’

  During the general business, before these cases were heard, there was a discussion regarding a rumour that Warwick Prison was to be closed. Members described it as ‘one of the most modern and best constructed in the kingdom and it would be a very great mistake if it were closed.’ In actual fact it did turn out to be just a rumour.

  Several of the prison warders were at the sessions that day and because they were away from the prison, retired warders had been asked to go in and help for the day. One of these was seventy-two-year-old John Hinks of Paradise Street. He had served as a prison warder from 1860 to 1881, and his job on that Tuesday afternoon was to light the gas lights in one of the corridors and its cells. As he opened one of the cell doors the prisoner inside rushed at him with a mat-beating mallet, which was made of wood and iron and weighed seven pounds. The prisoner hit the warder on the head rendering him unconscious, before he hit him again. He was restrained by two other prisoners before help arrived and Hinks’ attacker was placed in a padded cell. Hinks suffered from several wounds to the head, the back, the crown and the forehead, and he lost a lot of blood. Being taken home in a very weak state, doctors feared for his survival and the next day they were concerned that he was developing erysipelas.

  Hinks’ attacker was prisoner John Swinborne and no one could understand his outburst. The two had not met before, Hinks only having worked that day, and so it was thought that from his state of mind, Swinborne had intended to attack whoever came through the door of his cell at that moment. The authorities, however, stated that if his intent was to escape, he would not have been able to due to excellent security measures at the prison.

  * * *

  ‘no one could understand his outburst’

  * * *

  John Swinborne was described as ‘a short wiry young fellow’, who had been born in Walsall, Staffordshire and had been in and out of prison since he was a teenager. He was said to have started his criminal career when he was only about twelve or thirteen years old. In 1883 he stole a purse and later that year, in both October and November, he was given short sentences of imprisonment for various larcenies. He appeared in the Walsall courts again in 1885 for larceny, but was acquitted. The next year he was sentenced to penal servitude for five years. He had been released from prison in April 1890, but within two days he had been apprehended again.

  His present prison sentence of eighteen months followed an incident in Leamington Spa in November 1890, for which he appeared at the Warwick Assizes on 25 July 1891. Prior to his arrival in Leamington he had been in Banbury, where he had committed a similar offence but had gone undetected. He was seen by Police Constable Hopkins loitering outside Mr Nasmyth’s shop on the corner of Portland Street and Regent Street. A short time afterwards, Hopkins heard a loud crash and going to investigate found the large shop window had been smashed by a brick and the two ready-made overcoats, which had been on display, were gone.

  A false sighting sent the police to the Stratford Road, when in actuality Swinborne was on the Birmingham Road. A blacksmith saw him passing his forge in Solihull, wearing an overcoat and carrying another over his arm, so police put a watch on the highway leading into Birmingham. But again he evaded them and boarded a train for his home town of Walsall. Eventually, with the help of the police in Walsall, he was arrested in a lodging house.

  Swinborne did not give up without a fight, though, and when surrounded he backed into a corner where the crockery was kept and started throwing plates. The police rushed him and after a violent struggle managed to handcuff him. The stolen articles were nowhere to be found and without them the police knew they would have difficulty in proving the crime. With the assistance of the Birmingham police, a pawnbroker was found on the Stratford Road, Birmingham, where the items had been pawned. He identified John Swinborne as the man who had taken the items to his shop.

  During his appearance at the Warwick Assizes his actions in the courtroom suggested he was mentally deficient; he was insolent and incomprehensible, and it was reported that his ‘frontal development denoted an ill-balanced mind, and his face had a sullen and fretful aspect. He seemed to pay little attention to the evidence given against him, or to take the slightest heed of the serious position in which he stood.’ When he had been found guilty he had said, ‘Well if you think I am guilty, put the sentence on and have done with it.’ When he was given eighteen months he had looked disgusted and said, ‘Oh, that won’t do at all.’

  After this attack on John Hinks, Swinborne was reported to be a dangerous criminal that should be placed under efficient, permanent restraint for the safety of the general public. He was brought before three visiting justices, who ordered him to receive thirty-six strokes of the cat. Fortunately, John Hinks eventually recovered.

  On Saturday, 19 November 1892 James Russell, a thirty-one-year-old labourer, left his home at Burton’s Court in Saltisford to watch a football match in Emscote.

  The match was being played between the Warwickshire Regiment’s football team and the Singer’s Reserves, of Singer & Co. in Coventry. The match was won by the Warwickshire Regiment and the winning team, including one Private James Welch of Birmingham, went out to celebrate.

  Harriet Russell did not worry when her husband never returned home, as she knew he would go drinking afterwards, and as it was raining heavily she thought he may have gone to his sister’s for the night. He was a quiet man, so she never worried about him getting into any trouble. When he did drink he was always merry rather than quarrelsome. She was still not overly concerned when he had not returned by Sunday morning; perhaps, as a stone-breaker for the corporation, she thought he had gone to work.

  She was peeling potatoes for the Sunday dinner when Mr Fields, her husband’s supervisor, arrived with a policeman at one o’clock in the afternoon. After the policeman asked a few questions about her husband, Fields spoke up, saying, ‘Harriet they have got him dead at the police station; I have just been and owned him.’

  Saltisford today; a mixture of the old and the new.

  Newspapers later described Burton’s Court and Harriet Russell’s predicament: ‘The court is occupied by very poor house property, and the bereaved woman and her children were evidently left in poverty. Mrs Russell is a thin, wan-faced woman, of very quiet demeanour.’ Later reports wrote, ‘Today the wife of the unfortunate man Russell, who is left with seven young children, the oldest being ten years of age and the youngest five months old, made personal appearances to the Warwick Board of Guardians for relief. In consideration of the deplorable circumstances in which Mrs Russell has been placed the Guardians unanimously decided to allow her 8s per week, together with two loaves.’

  At eleven o’clock on that Saturday evening, William Bray had been returning home from Leamington and was walking along Priory Road when he had come across James Russell lying on the footpath. He was groaning and bleeding and ‘in a shockingly maltreated state’, with a stream of blood about two yards long flowing from him and down the hill. Bray called out and whistled in the hope someone would hear and come to his assistance. That help came in the form of John Harris, who had just come out of the Woodman Inn. Together they lifted Russell up and sat him against the wall. Harris went to find a policeman and came back with Police Sergeant Webb and Police Constable Hawkins, who took Russell to the police station, where Dr Guthrie Rankin was called out to treat the unconscious man. He described the wounds thus: ‘The skull was smashed in, his left eye nearly knocked out, and both cheeks were laid open.’ James died before they could get him to hospital.

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  ‘a stream of blood about two ya
rds long flowing from him’

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  Around this time Police Constable Goddard returned from his rounds and reported seeing soldiers acting aggressively and using bad language. As he was going along Barrack Street at twenty past eleven he had seen Private James Welch with his belt in his hand, and earlier Welch had been seen staggering about the streets threatening everybody he met. Welch became the main suspect and Inspector Hall went immediately to the barracks to interview him. Witnesses had also said that Private Frederick King had been seen with Welch, but from enquiries at the barracks it seemed that King could not have been involved, as he had been confined to barracks for a military offence. It was then discovered that he had actually broken out of the barracks that evening, and he was also taken to the police station for questioning.

  William Ellison of Barrack Street found a soldier’s stick on the Sunday morning, about a yard away from the pool of congealed blood in Priory Road. John Parsons, also of Barrack Street, found a military button on the other side of the road to where Russell had been found. And a young boy, Robert Hartwell, found a silver ring near the same spot. A drummer with the battalion, who was a jeweller by trade, said he had sold a similar ring to King a few weeks earlier.

  There were numerous people in Priory Road that Sunday morning. Many of them were women and children who seemed eager to see the spot where Russell had been found. And, according to the newspapers, it was easy to find: ‘So marked and distinguishable were the traces. The faces of the blue bricks are besmeared with blood. He must have made an attempt to regain his feet and escape, for the blood marks are continued for a few yards further on.’

  Priory Road today.

  Some of the newspapers appeared to condemn the soldiers even before the trial had begun: ‘The soldiers seem to have belaboured the unfortunate man about the head in a most ferocious manner, reducing the top of the skull almost to a pulp with repeated blows from the buckles of their belts before leaving him lying on the ground in an unconscious and dying condition.’

  After further enquiries, it was discovered that on the Saturday evening James Russell and the two soldiers had been drinking in the same public house, the Lord Nelson in Pickard Street. James always avoided soldiers’ company, so was sitting away from the crowds. His sister, Edith Russell, worked there as a barmaid and served Welch and King a jug of stout. She refused to serve them another, however, as she thought they had had too much already. Another soldier, who was not identified, pushed past her and said, ‘Get away, you are a slavey.’ Hearing this, James went to her defence and the soldier invited him to take it up out in the street, but James refused and left, going on to the Avon Tavern in Pickard Street, where he stayed until about ten o’clock.

  Welch and King now went to the Malt Shovel in West Street in the company of some women of ill-repute. They also left around ten o’clock and witnesses said they were seen encountering James at the bottom of Priory Road, where ‘an altercation was heard to take place’. It was known that James now carried on up Priory Road, where it was presumed the soldiers followed him and attacked him.

  William Hopkins said he was walking along Priory Road at about quarter to eleven and met a man walking in the opposite direction. He didn’t see who it was as it was too dark but the man had said ‘Goodnight’ to him. Half an hour earlier he had seen two soldiers coming out of the Malt Shovel with a drunken woman. He recognised the men as Welch and King and the woman as Ellen Bradford. They went down High Street followed by two other girls. Baldrey Cracknell also saw this same group in Jury Street. Then, just before eleven o’clock, Mrs Elizabeth Nicholls was at the top of Priory Road and she saw a man coming quietly down from Northgate. As she turned into Chapel Street she noticed two soldiers who were swearing at each other, only sixty yards from where James Russell was found.

  Ellen Bradford, who lived in Leamington, had come to Warwick on the Saturday evening with Annie Cyprus and Fanny Morain. She said they had met up with King at the Elmscote Tavern and as a group they had gone to the Lord Nelson at around eight in the evening.

  When the soldiers appeared at the Magistrates’ Court on 21 November, people were eager to hear something of the case:

  The court and its precincts were crowded by an excited throng. Amongst the crowd were a considerable number of women, most of them from the neighbourhood where the deceased had resided. It was only, however, with the bare expectation of catching a glimpse of the accused that so many were present. Inspector Hall took the precaution of conveying the prisoners there in a closed carriage. Their appearance was eagerly scanned as they stepped upon the slightly raised dock. Welch was wearing a grey military overcoat and King had on a rough scarlet undress tunic.

  Jury Street in the early 1900s.

  Three days later James Russell’s funeral took place. A large number of people gathered to follow the hearse to Warwick cemetery, where the coffin was carried to the grave by six members of the Avon Rovers football club. ‘It was indeed a most painful scene,’ the newspaper reported.

  During the trial at Warwick Assizes, Judge Sir William Rann Kennedy reminded the jury that it was important to know exact times and places. The newspaper reported that:

  It was extremely important that there should be no misunderstanding as to the localities mentioned. There were so many names of streets and inns, names of places and districts mentioned in the evidence that would be before them, that it was really a work, not only a duty, but of difficult duty, to follow what was meant by the great many references to the names of places. He trusted that the Grand Jury would have that special knowledge of the places mentioned that would render them able to follow the facts without special assistance.

  There were forty-eight witnesses to be called and the prosecution relied upon the finding of the soldier’s cane, the military button and the silver ring, and the fact one of the accused men had a button newly sewed on. But the defence said that all of these could be easily explained: the road where the body was found wasn’t a solitary one; someone said the stick was similar to the one they had lost earlier in the evening; the ring wasn’t the one sold to the soldier and he was still wearing his when arrested – he hadn’t bought two; and the button had been sewn on a couple of days before the murder, after the coat had been leant to someone else.

  The prosecution had broken down and the judge spoke to the jury. In his long speech it didn’t seem he was convinced these two soldiers had committed the offence. He reminded the jury to consider whether there was enough evidence to show that King or Welch were in Priory Road at the time of the attack. Two men had been seen by various witnesses, but were they the two soldiers? After a short absence the jury came back to say that there was no true bill against James Welch and Frederick King. Upon this announcement being made there was slight applause from several persons in the gallery, and then an immediate rush from the court of those anxious to tell large numbers of soldiers and others outside the result.

  On returning to their barracks, Welch and King were greeted with cheers, but this was short-lived. They were immediately arrested by the military authorities and sentenced to seven days’ hard labour; King for breaking out of barracks and Welch for causing a disturbance in Warwick. They were then stripped of their good conduct stripes and returned to the 1st Battalion in Aldershot.

  The Leamington Spa Courier, on Saturday, 17 December 1892, wrote: ‘Councillor Sleath thanks those ladies and gentlemen who have responded to his appeal for subscription on behalf of the widow and seven children of James Russell, whose brutal murder took place in Priory Road. Councillor Sleath has already received £12 and is making an effort to increase the sum to £20.’

  So who had attacked James Russell? That remained a mystery. The Leamington Spa Courier of 31 December 1892, while reviewing the year in Warwick, referred to the case and wrote: ‘The evidence against them was, however, of a too circumstantial character to convict them upon, and the murderer or murderers are still at large.’

  ‘A charming autumna
l morning had the effect of bringing together another large company, and, although the course was in a dreadfully hard state, fair fields contested the majority of the events.’ This was how a report on the day’s racing at Warwick on 13 September 1893 began. There were six races that day but none appeared to be outstanding, with no exceptional winners, there was no doubt though that the ‘large company’ enjoyed themselves.

  One of the visitors at this meeting was Alfred Suffolk from South Lambeth in London. After the racing had finished he went off in search of lodgings for the night. He first went to the Castle Restaurant, owned by Annie Woodfield. Unfortunately for him she was fully booked, so she suggested he tried Annie Wallbank at No. 3 St John’s in Warwick. He booked a room there for two nights, obviously intending to visit the races again. The following afternoon, after returning for a short time, he left and never returned. His bill was left unpaid.

  Mrs Wallbank had a couple of permanent lodgers in her establishment, one of which was Miss Pratt, a schoolmistress. She was in the sitting room on that Wednesday afternoon when Alfred returned to the house, and from the voices she could hear, it seemed that he was in the company of another man. The two men then went upstairs. Miss Barnett, another lodger, was upstairs and she heard a man’s voice say, ‘I am going to the station with my friend and shall be back soon.’ Alfred returned about ten minutes later and stayed for a short while, saying he wanted to wash. He then left again and never came back.