The Maul and the Pear Tree

by P. D. James

  Either way he was a victim of the hysteria which was spreading like an infection among the dark alleys and court-ways of Wapping and the neighbouring parishes.

  On Monday morning the Shadwell Public Office again opened early for the examination of suspects. One of them was a young seafaring man named John Williams who lodged with Mr and Mrs Vermilloe at the Pear Tree public house in Old Wapping, by the river. He was arrested there on the Sunday by Hewitt and Hope, two of the police officers at Shadwell, who were acting on private information received – though from what source there is no record. Williams was taken to the watch house and searched. In his possession were two pawn tickets of eight shillings and twelve shillings for shoes, fourteen shillings in silver and a pound note. The date on the pawn tickets was not apparently thought worth noting.

  The two police officers probably picked up this new suspect with no great hope that here at last was the man they sought. There had been so many suspects, so many false alarms, so many sanguine expectations that had come to nothing. They must by now have been carrying out their duties with dogged persistence but with diminishing hope of success. As they laid their hands on Williams’s shoulders they could not have foreseen that the commonplace name of this somewhat frail and shabbily elegant young seaman would, in a few days’ time, be on the lips of all London.

  John Williams was twenty-seven at the time of his arrest. The Times, a few days later, described him as ‘about 5 feet 9 inches in height, of an insinuating manner and pleasing countenance’; and added, ‘he is not lame’. He was an ordinary seaman who had once sailed with Marr in the Dover Castle, had returned from his last voyage in the East Indiaman the Roxburgh Castle early in October 1811, and had gone immediately to stow his sea chest and take up his old lodgings at the Pear Tree. This was his home in England and may well have been the only home he had. He returned there after all his voyages, paid over his earnings to Mr Vermilloe as banker, and was welcomed by Mrs Vermilloe as an agreeable and honest lodger, tidy about the house, considerate to her personally and affable to her acquaintances, particularly the females. He was superior in education and dress to the ordinary seaman, wrote a good hand, and was fastidious about his clothes and appearance. Not surprisingly he was occasionally mistaken for a gentleman, an impression he did nothing to dispel. He was a foppish young man, with a slim figure and an abundance of fair hair of a remarkable and unusual sandy colour which curled about a handsome, if rather weak, face. He had an open manner, described as agreeable by those susceptible to his attractions, usually women, and as insinuating by those, usually men, who judged by other criteria. Williams was extremely hot-tempered, easily provoked into fights and brawls, and invariably he got the worst of them. Men delighted to tease and incite him; his reaction, particularly when he was in drink, was predictable and to them, highly entertaining. Not surprisingly, perhaps, he had an abundance of female acquaintances but few men friends. Nothing was known of his family and antecedents, but it was generally agreed that a young man so superior in person and in education to an ordinary seaman must have some secret in his past to account for his present way of life.

  No doubt Williams considered life at the Pear Tree to be somewhat beneath him, but a bed in a room shared with two other seamen was all he could afford. The Pear Tree was a typical riverside house catering for sailors. Its raucous life centred on the tap-room; its yard was alive with the comings and goings of riverside Wapping. There was a back room in which the lodgers ate, and much of their personal washing was done under the pump in the back yard, although Mrs Vermilloe’s sister-in-law, Mrs Rice, came in regularly to wash linen for those who could afford to pay.

  Like most sailors, Williams spent freely on his return to land, compensating for months of danger, hardship and lack of female company. There was little incentive to plan for the future. Not for him the subservience and diligence of a Marr, the months of servitude which might in time be rewarded by a small gratuity and the chance of a settled home. When the money was gone there was always the pawn shop or gambling at whist, cribbage, putt and all fours. And when no resources remained, there was another ship, another voyage. In the meantime London had plenty of amusement to offer; a bear baiting, a public hanging; an evening squiring a female acquaintance to the Royalty Theatre in Wellclose Square; nights of riotous tippling in the notorious ‘cock and hen’ clubs typical of the easy-going conviviality of the age, where young men and prostitutes met to drink and sing songs until the early hours. And when these amusements palled, the present seemed wearisome and the future bleak, there was always the solace of more drink. Drinking, gambling and debt; these were links in a chain which bound many of the poor to their misfortunes. The links were extremely hard to break and there is no evidence that Williams tried to break them.

  From the account of Williams’s first examination, given in The Times of 24 December, it is obvious that the case against him was no stronger than it was against a dozen other suspects who had been taken into custody; indeed there is an inference that he was unlucky not to have been released.

  *

  The seafaring man named John Williams underwent a very long and rigid interrogation. The circumstances of suspicion which were alleged against him were that he had been frequently seen at the house of Williamson the publican and that he had been more particularly seen there about seven o’clock on Thursday evening last; that on the same evening he did not go home to his lodgings until about twelve, when he desired a fellow lodger, a foreign sailor, to put out his candle; that he was a short man and had a lame leg; that he was an Irishman; and that previous to this melancholy transaction he had little or no money; and that when he was taken into custody he had a good deal of silver.

  These suspicious circumstances having been proved against him the magistrates desired him to give an account of himself. He avowed that he had been at Mr Williamson’s on Thursday evening and at various other times. He had known Mr and Mrs Williamson a considerable time, and was very intimate there. On Thursday when he was talking to Mrs Williamson she was very cheerful and patted him on the cheek when she brought him some liquor. He was considered rather in the light of a friend than a mere customer of the house. When he left their house he went to a surgeon’s in Shadwell for the purpose of getting advice for the cure of his leg, which had been for a considerable number of years disabled in consequence of an old wound. From thence he went to a female chirurgeon in the same neighbourhood in the hopes of getting his cure completed at a less expense than a surgeon’s charge. He then went further west and met some female acquaintance, and after visiting several public houses, he returned to his lodgings and went to bed. The circumstance of desiring his fellow lodger to put out his candle arose in consequence of his fi nding the man, who was a German, lying in bed with a candle in one hand, with a pipe in his mouth, and a book in the other. Seeing him in that situation and apprehending that the house might be set on fi re by his carelessness, he told him to put out his light and not to expose the house to the danger of being burned to the ground. He accounted for the possession of the money found upon him as the produce of some wearing apparel he left as pledges at a pawnbroker’s. He never made any mystery of his having been at Mr Williamson’s on Thursday evening; on the contrary, he told the landlady and several other people that he had been with poor Mrs Williamson and her husband a short time before they were murdered, and remarked how cheerful Mrs Williamson was.

  The Times reports that ‘under all the circumstances of the case’ the prisoner was remanded for further examination. He was committed to Coldbath Fields Prison, where Sylvester Driscoll, the Irishman who had been arrested on the day following the murder of the Williamsons, was still confined. An Excise Officer had corroborated Driscoll’s story of how he came to possess a gallon of brandy and a quart of whisky; nevertheless, the magistrates were in no mood to discharge anyone, however slight the evidence might be, and Driscoll remained behind bars.

  Meanwhile, the magistrates at the Whitechapel Public Office wer
e pursuing their inquiries into the activities of the Portuguese. The two sailors Le Silvoe and Bernard Govoe, picked up over a week earlier, were still separately confined in Coldbath Fields Prison. Now, a friend of theirs called Anthony was brought up for examination. Someone had informed against him and it was then discovered that Anthony had left the neighbourhood and entered on board a West Indiaman which lay off Deal. An officer was dispatched to the ship and Anthony was identified and brought back to London to face the Whitechapel magistrates. The only suspicious circumstances alleged against him were that he was a friend of Le Silvoe and Bernard Govoe and had been seen with them about the time that Marr and his family were murdered; that the next or succeeding day he had enlisted on board the West Indiaman; and that the woman with whom he was living lied when questioned by her acquaintances, and still more so when examined by the officers. So the unfortunate Anthony joined his fellow-countrymen in Coldbath Fields Prison.

  There was no real evidence against any of the three. They were Portuguese and they had been seen in Ratcliffe Highway shortly after the Marr murders. These two facts were sufficient to place them in peril. The magistrates had become infected by the prejudice of the mob. They were desperate and worried men, obsessed with the need to seem busy, and in their timidity, reluctant to release any suspect once he had been brought before them, for fear of letting loose a murderer. It seems that, to them, any activity, however unprofitable and ill-directed, was better than none.

  The Irish fared no better than the Portuguese. Michael Harrington, William Austin and William Emery were picked up in Poplar on no better grounds than that the first looked and dressed like the man seen by Turner rifling Mrs Williamson’s pockets, and the second was short and lame. Emery was arrested with them, presumably because he was keeping doubtful company. He and Harrington stated that during the whole of the previous week they had been on board the Astel, an East Indiaman, at Gravesend, where they were entered as seamen, and that they lodged with a Mr Smith at No. 25 Angel Court, St Martin’s le Grand. Austin said that he was also a shipmate with the other two prisoners and had only been discharged the previous Saturday from King’s Bench Prison, where he had been confined for about ten days.

  It was obviously important to check the identity of the prisoners. On this occasion, however, it seems that the magistrates were short of officers, probably because they were out scouring the East End in search of tall or lame Irishmen, and a gentleman from the public gallery obligingly volunteered to visit St Martin’s le Grand to check part of the alibi. He set off immediately, no doubt with visions of public fame, if not of a substantial reward, but he had cause to regret his impetuosity. The address was that of a common lodging house, typical of the thousands which had sprung up in eighteenth-century London. It contained as many families as rooms, while the single lodgers, poor, illiterate and transient, paid one penny a night, or little more, for the privilege of lying together, sometimes fifteen or twenty in a bed. In these conditions the landlord could seldom vouch for his tenants, or the tenants know the name of their landlord. The landlord was not called Smith but there was a lodger who admitted to that name, although he disclaimed any knowledge of Harrington or Emery. After a dispiriting half-hour, the inquiring gentleman returned to Shadwell with his report. Since no satisfactory alibi was forthcoming the three Irishmen were remanded for further examination.

  Meanwhile yet another gang, this time of seven, had been taken into custody, all apprehended in a house nearer Williamson’s. In the possession of one of them were found two shirts, stained with marks which resembled blood, and a waistcoat with similar marks, the latter bearing on it the evident imprint of a pruning knife. All were found in a damp state as if they had been recently washed. The man in whose lodgings they were found stated that the marks were the stains of hop vines, as he had been employed as a hop picker during the last season in Kent. The seven men were, however, remanded in custody until the shirts and waistcoat could be inspected by a ‘chemical gentleman’ in order to ascertain whether the stains were those of an animal or vegetable substance. This is the first reference during the whole of the investigation to any scientific examination of evidence. Presumably the report of the ‘chemical gentleman’ was satisfactory, as the seven unfortunates were released next day, as were Harrington, Austin and Emery ‘after confirmation of their story by the most satisfactory testimony’ and a further man, Patrick Neale, taken up on suspicion at Deptford. All were discharged with an apology for their detention, and a congratulatory compliment on the removal of the suspicions attached to them. The magistrates were by now probably uneasily aware that they had yielded too easily to the prejudice of the mob. They found it prudent to declare ‘their high satisfaction and approbation of the conduct of the Hibernian inhabitants of the Wapping district in their exertions to forward the view of the police in bringing the sanguinary wretches who have hitherto escaped to a just and exemplary punishment’.

  It was Tuesday, Christmas Eve; and now the Whitechapel magistrates finally bowed out of the case with a piece of information as absurdly irrelevant as any that had come their way. A Hertfordshire magistrate arrived to report ‘a very extraordinary circumstance which he thought might throw some light on the late shocking events’. A man named Bailey, a bricklayer’s labourer from Norfolk, had been taken up on suspicion of felony. On searching the prisoner’s room a considerable quantity of valuable plate was found, together with some blood-stained linen. This circumstance excited a suspicion that Bailey was concerned in the late murders and he accordingly underwent a stringent cross-examination. He denied all knowledge of the murders, declared his ignorance of any persons connected with them, and his unwillingness to impeach innocent persons. That same evening he was remanded in custody in Cheshunt, and the next morning, when the constables went to bring him up for further examination, he was found suspended from a beam by a silk handkerchief and quite lifeless. The Times states that ‘the unfortunate man did not evince any intellectual derangement but that there was little doubt that the property found in his possession was stolen from some gentleman’s house in the neighbourhood’. This is very probable, but it is difficult to see why the Hertfordshire magistrate should have connected Bailey with the Marrs’ or Williamsons’ murders since nothing substantial was stolen from either house. By now, however, any information, however irrelevant or incongruous, was received and reported. Not only the London magistrates, but the whole country was desperate for action. Even as far away as Portsea and Portsmouth rewards for the apprehension of the murderers were being raised by public subscription. They raised the total amount offered to nearly £800, an unprecedented sum in those days.

  And then, still on Christmas Eve, it seemed that at long last the vital break had come. Seventeen days after the murder of the Marrs and four after the last handbill had been issued describing the maul in detail, the weapon was identified – on whose initiative it is not clear. And it is far from apparent why it should have taken so long to trace a weapon clearly stamped with the owner’s initials. It may have been the landlord of the Pear Tree, Mr Vermilloe, who recognised the description. Certainly it was he to whom the final reward for the maul’s identification was paid. He was at that time a prisoner in Newgate Prison for debt, and it was to the prison that Capper bore his carefully-packaged exhibit. Mr Vermilloe recognised it. He said that it belonged to a German sailor from Hamburg named John Peterson, who had recently lodged at the Pear Tree, and had left his chest of tools in Vermilloe’s keeping when he returned to sea. Most of the tools were marked with Peterson’s initials and Vermilloe, although he would not commit himself to a positive identification, was almost certain that this maul had been among them. He had used one of the mauls to chop wood, and had himself broken the tip.

  It must have been with satisfaction and profound relief that Capper bore the maul and his good news back to Shadwell Public Office. At last his efforts and those of his colleagues seemed likely to be crowned with success. They had worked indefatigably. They had
sat at all hours examining suspects. No information brought to them had been ignored. No clue unexplored. All they had received for their pains had been open criticism or muttered abuse. One might almost suppose that the mob held them personally responsible for the deaths of the Marrs and the Williamsons. But now success was surely in sight. The murder weapon, still stained with blood and matted with hair, had undeniably come from the Pear Tree. They already had in custody a suspect from the Pear Tree. The inference was obvious and inescapable. Markland thought it right to acquaint the Home Secretary with their tentative optimism and, at the same time, to remind Ryder of the zeal with which he and his colleagues were pursuing their inquiries:

  Shadwell 24 Dec. 1811

  7 o’clock.

  Dear Sir,

  The whole day has been spent on examining men brought to this office on different suspicions; we cannot yet say that we have sufficient clues to lead to a discovery: there is one man who we are going to examine this evening on whom suspicion is rather strong: should anything transpire you shall have the earliest information from

  Dear Sir

  Yrs very sincerely

  Geo. Markland.

  That evening, shortly after seven o’clock, John Williams was brought up into the crowded courtroom of the Public Office. The candlelit interrogation and the examination of witnesses was typical of its kind. It demonstrates some of the defects and injustices of the system, and the almost unmitigated power of the magistrates to conduct an inquiry in the manner they chose. Their function was primarily inquisitorial. Their only judicial function was the committal of the prisoner for trial if the case against him was sufficiently strong, and it was they who decided on the strength of the case. There were no rules of evidence. The magistrates asked any question which seemed to them likely to elicit the truth, or which took their fancy. Prisoners were allowed, even encouraged to incriminate themselves. Hearsay evidence was admitted. Overt prejudice by witnesses, partiality, insinuations and malice went unrebuked. Irrelevant and uncorroborated information was freely given and often accepted. The prisoner was not represented by a lawyer or friend, nor was he permitted to be present to hear the evidence. Consequently he was often unaware of the strength of the case building up against him.