by P. D. James
The custom was to hold the inquest as near as possible to the scene of the crime, so on Saturday, Unwin, the Coroner, took over the Black Horse, just across the road from the King’s Arms. Vast crowds swarmed outside, some curious, some awestruck, all avid for sensation, pushing and jostling up New Gravel Lane to Ratcliffe Highway and round the corner to Marr’s shop less than half a mile distant. Inside the Black Horse witnesses, jury, pressmen and a few lucky spectators struggled for space. Then, promptly at two o’clock, the Coroner called for silence and addressed the jury:
The frequent instances of murder committed in the eastern part of the metropolis, which no vigilance has been successful to detect; in a vicinity where the population of the lower classes preponderates, increased by the number of strangers and seamen discharged from time to time at the East and West India, and London Docks, and the influx of foreign sailors from all parts of the globe; imperiously call for the solemn attention of those more immediately entrusted with the administration of Government; for the late and present murders are a disgrace to the country, and almost a reproach on civilisation: while the exertions of the police, with the ordinary power of the parochial officers, are found insufficient to protect men’s persons from the hand of violence; and the Coroner has to record the most atrocious crimes without the possibility of delivering the perpetrators to justice and punishment; our homes are no longer our castles, and we are unsafe in our beds. These observations, strong as they are, will be found warranted by the events which have lately taken place within a short distance of the spot where we are now met, and by the numerous verdicts of wilful murder, which, during the last three months, have been returned by Juries against the persons unknown, not one of which has yet been discovered. Until some more appropriate remedy be pointed out, it appears advisable, in the present agitation of the public mind, that parties of the military, under the direction of the civil power, selected from Militia or Guards, should patrol this district during the night. Your verdict, I am sorry to say, will, in these cases, be given generally on the evidence, as the perpetrators are unknown; but it may be hoped, by the aid of the Divine Providence which seldom permits murder, in this life, to go unpunished, with the exertions which will be used, these inhuman monsters may be discovered and brought to justice. Your verdict will be wilful murder against some persons unknown.
The first witness to be sworn was John Turner. He said he was in the employ of Messrs Scarlett & Cook and had lodged with the Williamsons for about eight months. His room was in the front garret, two floors from the ground. He boarded at his brother’s house near by. Turner went on:
I went from my brother’s to Mr Williamson’s on Thursday evening last, about twenty minutes before eleven o’clock, as near as I can say. When I went in, Mrs Williamson was standing at the front door. She followed me. Mr Williamson was sitting in the middle room, in his great chair: the servant was in the back room. I saw no other person in the house but those three. Mr Williamson told me to sit down. I stood by the fire. A little man came in, whose name I understand to be Samuel Phillips – he came in according to his usual custom for a pint of beer, and told Mr Williamson that there was a stout man with a very large coat on, peeping in at the inner glass door in the passage. Mr Williamson, catching up the candlestick, said: ‘I’ll see what he wants.’ He went out with the candle in his hand and returned saying, ‘he could not see him, but if he did see him, he would send him where he ought or would not like to go.’ Phillips went out with his beer, and Mr Anderson came in directly afterwards – he did not stay above two or three minutes. Shortly afterwards the servant raked out the fire and I went to bed; at which time Mrs Williamson followed me upstairs to her own room with a watch and silver punch ladle. This was the last time I saw either of them living. I heard Mrs Williamson lock the bedroom door and go downstairs again. There was no fastening to my room door. I went to bed, and had not been there above five minutes before I heard the front door being banged to: very hard. Immediately afterwards I heard the servant exclaim ‘We are all murdered’ or ‘shall be murdered’ two or three times; I cannot exactly say which of the expressions she made use of. I had not been asleep. I heard the sound of two or three blows, but with what weapon I cannot say. Shortly afterwards I heard Mr Williamson cry out, ‘I’m a dead man.’ I was in bed still. About two minutes afterwards I got out of bed, and listened at the door, but could hear nothing. I went down to the first floor, and from below I heard the sound of three heavy sighs. I heard some person walk across the middle of the room on the ground floor very lightly. I was then half way down the last pair of stairs, and naked. I went to the bottom of the stairs, and the door stood a little on the jar. I passed through the opening, and by the light of a candle which was burning in the room, I saw a man, apparently near six feet high, in a large rough Flushing coat, of a dark colour, which came down to his heels. He was standing with his back towards me; apparently leaning over some person, as if in the act of rifling their pockets, as I heard some silver rattle, and saw him rise and open his coat with his left hand and put his right hand on to his breast, as if to put something in his pocket. I did not see his face, and I only saw that one person. I was fearful and went upstairs as quick but as softly as I could. I thought first of getting under the bed, but was fearful I should be found. I then took the two sheets, tied them together, tied them to the bed post; opened the window, and lowered myself down by the sheets. The watchman was going by. I told him there was murder in the house and he assisted me in getting down. I had nothing on but my nightcap, my shirt and a Jersey waistcoat. The watchman sprang his rattle. Mr Fox then came up, and said, ‘break the door open’. Mr Fox went over the way and came back again with an hanger. I have frequently seen Mr Williamson’s watch. It is a small thick silver watch, with a glass. It had a gold coloured chain, and a large seal with a stone in the bottom. I saw Mr Williamson playing with the chain on Thursday night, when I was standing at the fire. I never saw an iron crow in the house to my knowledge.
As Turner finished his evidence, white and tense with the remembered shock of what he had seen, the silence of the tap-room would have been broken only by the scratching of the quill pens of the journalists and coroner’s clerk, the crackling of the fire and the subdued murmuring from the crowd in the street. It was impossible to doubt that Turner had told the truth. Although someone had instantly given him in charge to the watchman on the night of the murder he had quickly been released. But what sort of man was he to abandon Williamson’s grand-daughter, Kitty Stillwell, to her fate? In his desperate anxiety to get out of the King’s Arms alive he had apparently given her no thought. But De Quincey, painting his picture in stark black and white, with one character portrayed as villain, and the rest ennobled to provide an effective contrast to his depravity, contrived an ingenious defence of the unfortunate lodger:
But courage! God by the proverb of all nations in Christendom, helps those that help themselves…. Were it only for himself that he worked, he could not feel himself meritoriously employed; but this is not so; in deep sincerity, he is now agitated for the poor child, whom he knows and loves; every minute, he feels, brings ruin nearer to her; and as he passed her door, his first thought had been to take her out of bed in his arms, and to carry her where she might share his chances. But, on consideration, he felt that this sudden awakening of her, and the impossibility of even whispering any explanation, would cause her to cry audibly; and the inevitable indiscretion of one would be fatal to the two. – No; there is but one way to save the child; towards her deliverance the first step is through his own. And he has made an excellent beginning; for the spike, which too fearfully he had expected to see torn away by any strain upon it stands firmly when tried against the pressure of his own weight. He has rapidly fastened on to it three lengths of new rope, measuring twelve feet. He plaits it roughly; so that only three feet have been lost in the inter-twisting; he has spliced on a second length equal to the first; so that, already, sixteen feet are ready to throw out of t
he window, – To his sixteen feet, of which seven are neutralised by the distance of the bed, he has at last added six feet more which will be short of reaching the ground by perhaps ten feet – a trifle which man or boy may drop without injury – and at this very moment, whilst desperate agitation is nearly paralysing his fingers, he hears the sullen, stealthy step of the murderer creeping up through the darkness. – Never perhaps in this world did any man feel his own responsibilities so cruelly loaded and strained, as at this moment did the poor journeyman on behalf of the slumbering child. Lose but two seconds, through awkwardness or through self-counteractions of panic, and for her the total difference arose between life and death. Still there is a hope: and nothing can so frightfully expound the hellish nature of him whose baleful shadow at this moment darkens the house of life, than the simple expression of the ground on which this hope rested. The journeyman felt sure that the murderer would not be satisfied to kill the poor child whilst unconscious. This would be to defeat his whole purpose in murdering her at all. To an epicure in murder … it would be taking away the very sting of the bitter cup of death without fully apprehending the misery of the situation. – But all considerations whatever are at this moment suddenly cut short. A second step is heard on the stairs, but still stealthy and cautious; a third – and then the child’s doom seem fixed. But just at that moment all is ready. The window is wide open; the rope is swinging free; the journeyman has launched himself and already is in the first stage of his descent.
De Quincey’s account, like the whole of his essay, is a powerful evocation of fear and suspense, but it bears little relation to the truth.
George Fox was next sworn:
I reside in New Gravel Lane, opposite the house of the deceased. On Thursday night, as the watch was going eleven, I came to the top of New Gravel Lane, on my way home, and I saw two watchmen standing at Mr Williamson’s door; when I came up to them and asked them what was the matter? Mr Lee the landlord of the Black Horse, was along with the watchmen. I was told the house was being robbed if not the people being murdered in it. Several other persons coming up soon after, I begged of them to knock hard. If there was no answer, I proposed to break open the door, and I would be answerable for the consequences. They did knock and received no answer. While they were breaking open the door I ran across to my own house for an hanger,2 which the servant immediately gave me with my going indoors. The door and the front cellar window were immediately broken open. Three or four persons went down the cellar window while myself and three or four others went in at the door. We looked in at the fore-room which was in darkness. We went into the middle room, occupied as a kitchen, where there was a light burning on a table. There I saw Mrs Williamson, lying with her face along the hearth, with her head towards the door; with her throat cut, and the blood flowing from the wound, apparently dead. She had her clothes on. Some keys and a box were lying by her side, and it appeared to me that her pockets had been rifled. The servant, Bridget Harrington, was lying between Mrs Williamson and the fireplace, in the same direction. Her throat was cut and the blood was flowing from it: the fire was out; and materials laid ready to light it in the morning. She was also completely dressed, and appeared to have received a violent blow on the head. I immediately called out, ‘Where is the old man, Williamson?’ I was answered from those in the cellar: ‘Here he is, with his throat cut.’ I went part of the way down, and saw him lying upon his back in the cellar. I immediately with the others, proceeded to search the house. I went into the back room, next to that in which I had found the bodies of Mrs Williamson and the servant. I found that the inside shutter of one of the back windows had been taken down and the sash thrown up. In about half an hour afterwards I examined the window most closely, and saw that the window shutter, which had been taken down, was marked with blood, apparently with the print of a hand. There was also blood upon the inside iron bar. When I first saw the window open I begged somebody would go upstairs and search the house, while I remained at the window. I stopped at the window to stop any retreat. Mr Mallett, the Chief Clerk of the Shadwell Police, and two Police Officers, went with me to search for the offenders, but without effect, at different houses; in consequence of information that two suspicious persons had gone along Shadwell High Street. Soon after I got into the house I saw John Turner, who had, as I was informed, made his escape out of the window; and gave him in charge to the watchman.
Next the surgeon, Walter Salter, was sworn. He testified that he had inspected the bodies of the several parties deceased by the direction of the Coroner, and had found the following marks of violence on their bodies:
John Williamson – has a wound extending from the left ear to within two inches of the right, penetrating through the trachea or windpipe, and down to the vertebrae of the neck; and the tibia, or large bone of the left leg, fractured a little above the ankle, apparently from a fall, as if downstairs, because, had it been done by any other means, I think there must have been a laceration of the integuments; no marks of violence upon any other parts.
Elizabeth Williamson – the right temporal and parietal dreadfully fractured; apparently from a large poker, or some such instrument, comprehending nearly the whole of the right side of the head; the throat cut from ear to ear, through the windpipe etc; no marks of violence upon any other part.
Anna Bridget Harrington, the woman servant – the right parietal bone laid open about four inches in length and two inches in width, with the bones exposed; and the throat cut about four inches in length through the windpipe; no other marks of violence appear.
I conceive their throats to have been cut with a razor; as none but a sharp instrument could have cut so deep without tearing the parts; which is not the case in this instance; their throats being cut by one incision. On each of their bodies there is sufficient cause of death appearing.
The jury retired and at seven o’clock that evening, returned the expected verdict: wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.
1 Probably identical with the Old Rose, still standing in Ratcliffe Highway near the site of Marr’s shop, and bearing the inscription, Established in 1666.
2 A short sword, originally hung from the belt – O.E.D.
FIVE
The Pear Tree
The Williamsons and their maid were buried at twelve o’clock on Sunday 22 December, at St Paul’s Church, Shadwell.
The service [Fairburn reports] was read by the Reverend Mr Denis in a most impressive manner and the feelings of the multitude were expressive of the deepest sorrow. The feelings of the Reverend Divine were so much overpowered that both in the church and at the grave the service was suspended for some minutes until he could recover himself. All the shops in the neighbourhood of the church were closed and the magistrates, having very judicially stationed a considerable number of officers in the churchyard, the service was conducted with the utmost solemnity and without the slightest disorder.
But all through Sunday the atmosphere of fear, suspicion and panic intensified. One of its victims was a young solicitor’s clerk named Mellish, who worked in Old Jewry. He was sitting in the back parlour of the Three Foxes public house in Fox’s Lane and talking about the murders with the nephew of the landlord, when they heard a watchman’s rattle and a cry, ‘Stop the murderers!’ Mellish cried out, ‘My God there is more murder!’ and each arming himself with a poker, they ran out into the street and joined in the pursuit of the suspects. Mellish could not keep up with his companion but followed as fast as he could. At the street corner he met three men running, ‘two of whom were remarkably ill-looking fellows, and the third a very short man’. Supposing they were the men against whom the hue and cry had been raised, he said, ‘You are the villains and I shall have at you’ – a remarkably courageous defiance, considering he believed himself to be facing murderers, and the odds were three to one. He instantly levelled a blow with a poker at the head of the little man, but it had no effect other than to stun him for the moment. The man quickly recovered hi
s feet and discharged a pistol of small shot into Mellish’s face. His assailant made his escape and Mellish was carried back to the Three Foxes public house, his face appallingly disfigured and both eyes completely blinded. The Times reported that he remained in a very precarious state. We are not subsequently told whether he died or, less mercifully perhaps, survived the crude methods of early nineteenth-century surgery to eke out an existence as a blind and mutilated dependant.
