The Ripper of Waterloo Road

by Jan Bondeson

  The brother managed to track Eliza down and asked her to return to Ipswich with him, to rejoin her elderly mother. Magnanimously, he assured her that ‘not the slightest allusion would be made to her previous mode of life’. But far from showing her long-lost brother any gratitude, Eliza told him she was perfectly happy in her present situation; she had a well-furnished house to live in, and earned plentiful money by letting rooms to lodgers. Under no circumstance, she said haughtily, would she deign to live in a small house, since they were always situated in low neighbourhoods. Dismayed that his fallen sister was so ‘exalted in her opinions’, as he expressed it, the brother sadly returned home. He had left Eliza their mother’s address, however, and Eliza sent her 73-year-old parent a pound of tea as a present, with the promise that she would come visiting in the summer. The news that Eliza had been murdered had a most injurious effect on Eliza’s mother and crippled sister, and the latter had been in such a dangerous state ever since to leave little hope of her recovery.9

  When the inquest was resumed at the York Hotel on Thursday 31 May, it was Mr Cooke the surgeon who again took centre stage. On Monday evening, he and five other surgeons had performed an autopsy on the murdered woman. After Eliza Grimwood’s naked body had been washed and put on a shutter in the back parlour, it was closely inspected by the surgeons, who carved away with their knives to probe the various wounds. The cause of death was undoubtedly the terrible injury to the throat, which had severed both the left carotid artery and the windpipe. There was a wound to the left breast that had been deflected by one of the ribs, a second stab that had entered the thorax at the bottom of the sternum, and a ‘ripping’ stab to the abdomen about 3in lower. The stab to the back of the neck was also a most formidable one, completely separating the third and fourth cervical vertebrae and exposing the spinal cord. On the thumb and finger of the left hand were two small wounds, which appeared to have been sustained by the murdered woman raising her hand to protect her throat by grasping the murder weapon. According to a newspaper reporter, there was a murmur of horror among the jury and spectators when surgeon Cooke went through this gory list of injuries. Eliza’s lips were very swollen and bruised, indicating that the murderer had held her mouth in a vice-like grip to prevent her from crying out as he went through this catalogue of butchery. The murder weapon was clearly neither a razor nor a stiletto, but a stronger and more formidable instrument.10

  After his confident appearance at the inquest, the cocky young surgeon must have felt rather deflated when Inspector Field casually explained to the jury that it was actually he himself who had discovered that it was a case of murder in the first place, since the surgeon had not even bothered to turn the body around. Being asked some further questions about Hubbard’s behaviour, Cooke conformed that the bricklayer had ‘appeared to be in a state of great trepidation and excitement’. Hubbard had barely been able to explain the nature of his call to the surgery, nor had he made it clear whether he thought Eliza had been murdered or committed suicide. After touching the body and various utensils in the room, the surgeon’s hands had become so bloody he had to wipe them on the corner of the bed sheets. When he looked round in the room, there were no signs of a person having washed himself, or even wiped his hands on any piece of fabric. This evidence was corroborated by the beadle Anderson, who had also searched the house that fateful morning. He added that there was no blood anywhere in the kitchen, nor any sign of a person having washed himself. There were a few tiny marks of blood in the hallway, possibly from Hubbard’s shoes, but not even the slightest bloodstain on the candlestick that had been put down in the hallway, nor on the door handle. There was a bloody napkin underneath Eliza’s head, but it was not clear to the beadle where it had come from.

  The cabman Spicknell next told his story of driving Eliza and the Foreigner home, followed by the musician Chapman, who this time added that the Foreigner had worn a fashionable rough coat and that Chapman had been less than 6ft away from him. After him came a surprise witness, who had a most interesting story to tell. John Sharp, who introduced himself as a reporter for The Times newspaper, had been in the pits of the Strand Theatre the evening of the murder and had seen Eliza Grimwood three or four times. She had been in the company of another young female dressed in black, with whom she had spoken more than once. About fifteen minutes before the play ended, Eliza tapped her friend on the shoulder with her fan and said something that sounded like, ‘I am going out with … He is here.’ The reporter was of course asked to try to decipher this cryptic statement, but he replied that he had already been racking his brain over it all day. The theatre had been a very noisy place, and although he had been looking at the attractive Eliza Grimwood from time to time, he had not been actively trying to overhear her conversation. There might just have been a name after ‘I am going out with …’ but in that case, he had not heard it clearly. Inspector Field was probably grinding his teeth that this ideal opportunity of learning the name of the Foreigner had been lost in such a dismal fashion. Nor had Sharp seen the person Eliza had spoken about. When asked how he could be so certain the woman he had seen had been the murdered Eliza Grimwood, the enterprising reporter replied that he had already visited the murder house, where he had been readily admitted to see the body.

  Thomas Grimwood, Eliza’s eldest brother, next announced his presence. Having read about Eliza’s death in the newspapers, he had decided to take up residence in the murder house, along with his two brothers. It must be suspected that the reason for their alacrity in moving into No. 12 Wellington Terrace was that they knew that Eliza had been in possession of a good deal of valuable property, which they feared Hubbard might be planning to steal away. Thomas Grimwood produced two letters recently delivered to the house, addressed to Eliza by her admirer the Birmingham sword cutler, which he handed over to the coroner.

  The next witness was a certain John Francis Cubitt, residing in Wandsworth Road, who testified that on the night of the murder, he had been drinking hard at an establishment called the Coal-hole, before reluctantly walking home between five and six o’clock in the morning. On passing Waterloo Bridge, he had stopped to speak to the toll-keeper Lewis. Suddenly, a man had come running up to a policeman nearby and explained something to him before they took off together. Mystified, Cubitt lurched after them and saw them enter No. 12 Wellington Terrace. Cubitt believed this man to have been Hubbard. He had not seen him throw something from the bridge. Cubitt claimed that he had asked this man whether he could be of any assistance, and later accompanied him to the surgery. Inspector Field and the journalists present sagely noted that the drunken Cubitt must be identical to the man Hubbard had encountered standing outside the house, seemingly too ready to provide assistance.

  A young lady named Emma Lewis next took the stand. She claimed that she had been met by Eliza Grimwood at the Strand Theatre at about ten o’clock on the evening of the murder. Eliza had been accompanied by another female, who was in mourning dress. Her name was either Julia Denman or Julia Seymour, and she lived in Crown Street, Westminster. Julia had told Emma that just before the play was to end, Eliza had tapped her on the shoulder and said, ‘Julia, I am going out with my friend.’ Emma Lewis claimed that she herself had again seen Eliza Grimwood about half an hour later. By then she was standing opposite the theatre door together with a tall gentleman who wore glasses and had a cloak on his arm. It looked like they were going away in a cab. Neither Emma Lewis nor her friend Julia knew the name of this gentleman.

  Inspector Field, who must have found the testimony of Emma Lewis and the reporter Sharp most encouraging when it came to tracking down the Foreigner, next took the stand himself. When asked by the coroner why Julia Seymour was not in attendance, he had to reply that he had not known about the story of Emma Lewis until a few minutes ago, but that if the inquest was adjourned for a few days, he would track her down and summon her to attend. The coroner agreed, but the inspector was not yet done. He pointed out that this was a very formidable murder
case, in which several lines of inquiry were required. Hubbard needed to be watched, the murder house guarded, and there was a need to search the house minutely, and to scour the area around Waterloo Road and Bridge for the murder weapon and for bloodstained garments. Since further witnesses kept turning up all the time, there was also a need to check their stories and to find others who might have seen the Foreigner the evening of the murder. All hotels and lodging houses catering for foreigners needed to be searched, and also all foreign ships. These steps needed to be taken quickly, since it was unlikely that the Foreigner would be tarrying long in London. It was of course impossible for just three policemen to accomplish all these tasks, and he would respectfully ask that some further constables were added to the Grimwood task force. This was quite a novel step at a time when even the most complex cases were investigated by just a few policemen, but both the coroner and Superintendent Grimsall willingly agreed to the inspector’s request.

  On Friday 1 June, Inspector Field and his troop of constables ‘had the cesspool emptied, the water pipes taken down, the chimnies searched, and every part of the house minutely searched’. Nothing untoward was found. After supervising the search, the inspector ‘proceeded to make inquiries about Hubbard’s wife, and found that she was a Kept Woman’.11

  It was decided that due to decomposition, Eliza Grimwood’s remains should be buried on 1 June, in the churchyard of St John’s Church in Waterloo Road. When Hubbard made it known that he wanted to attend as a mourner, Eliza’s three brothers objected strongly. The Rev. Mr Irvine, minister of St John’s Church, took it upon himself to go to see Hubbard to try to dissuade him from coming. After he had pointed out that there would be a large and rowdy mob present, and that Hubbard would be in danger of his life if he tried to attend, the clergyman succeeded in his purpose.

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, the mourners followed Eliza Grimwood’s hearse the short distance to the church in a row of coaches.12 One of these contained the brothers Grimwood. Another carried Inspector Field, who may well have been surveying the crowd through the lattice blinds, like Bucket did at Tulkinghorn’s funeral in Dickens’s Bleak House. But the crowd of ‘mourners’ and interested onlookers following the procession on foot was immense. Notwithstanding that the rain was pouring down in torrents, the portion of the Waterloo Road from the bridge to the church was crowded with people. When the gates were opened after a short ceremony, a crowd of at least a thousand people, mainly women, rushed into the churchyard. A journalist from The Globe wrote, ‘The prejudice existing against Hubbard is extensive and violent, and several of the women who were present at the funeral gave vent to loud and bitter imprecations against him. Had he followed the remains there is every reason to believe a serious disturbance would have taken place.’13

  On Saturday 2 June, the Grimwood task force began making ‘inquiries at the different docks, wharfs, and other places’ to find out if any person fitting the description of the Foreigner had left London by any of the Strand boats. The inspector went round to the passport office and began to work out which foreign ships were on the Thames at the time of the murder. The next day, the inspector ‘had a long interview with the servant Mary Fisher respecting Hubbard and his living with the deceased’.14

  The church of St John, Waterloo Road, where Eliza Grimwood was buried. An engraving from a drawing by Thomas Shepherd.

  A week after Eliza Grimwood had been murdered, the police seemed no closer to apprehending the culprit. The newspapers had initially been confident in the work of the police, but now they began to publish some critical letters. All the time, further spice was added to the proceedings by the bill-stickers, gangs of men who toured the slums and rookeries of London pasting up handbills about the latest murder. For those who could not afford to buy the newspapers, these bills were a prime source of news, although hardly unbiased. Sometimes, the bill-stickers acted as extra detectives and themselves proposed suspects for various notorious crimes. Many years later, a bill-sticker told Henry Mayhew that:

  We had, at the verry least, half-a-dozen coves pulled up in the slums that we printed for the murder of ‘the Beautiful Eliza Grimwood, in the Waterloo Road’. I did best on Thomas Hopkins, being the guilty man – I think he was Thomas Hopkins – ’cause a strong case was made out against him.15

  Very few of the original handbills on the Grimwood case have been kept for posterity, however, and no suspect named Hopkins was named either by the police or by the newspapers.16

  6

  THE STRANGE WELSHMAN

  On Friday 1 June, a short, bald-headed, furtive-looking man came into Mr Clayton’s tailor’s shop at No. 11 Wellington Terrace, next door to the murder house. He asked the assistant George Grant to fetch Mr Clayton, since he had something very important to communicate to this gentleman, who was one of the jurors in the Grimwood case. But Grant was not impressed with this scruffy-looking fellow and told him that unless he stated his business, there was no question of his master coming down. The mystery man, who refused to give his own name, then said that he knew who had murdered Eliza Grimwood!

  Grant immediately ran upstairs to fetch his master, but when Mr Clayton came downstairs, the odd-looking little man seemed very reluctant to explain himself further. When asked why he had not already attended at Union Hall to give evidence before the coroner and jury, he said that he had a strong and decided objection to taking the oath, which he would have been obliged to do if he appeared as a witness. When Mr Clayton made a move to seize him by the arm, the man ran out of the shop, waving his arms about excitedly.

  Mr Clayton acted with commendable resolution. He ordered young George Grant to follow the strange visitor at a distance and to watch his movements. The shop assistant, who had no objection to becoming an extra detective, could soon see the mystery man loping through the streets. From time to time he was looking furtively around him, as if he was fearful of being pursued. When it began to rain heavily, he did not take shelter but kept on hurrying along the streets, seemingly at random, taking many unnecessary turns. Finally, he purchased a sheet of paper in a stationer’s shop in Rosemary Lane, near Tower Hill, and went into a coffee shop nearby. Grant could see him in there, swigging from his cup of coffee and scribbling furiously on the sheet of paper. Perceiving a police constable nearby, Grant ran up to him and explained the situation.

  A constable in the Metropolitan Police, in the uniform of 1829.

  Having recovered from his initial surprise in finding himself a vital player in the hunt for London’s most wanted murderer, Police Constable Leaman made quite a sensible plan. He himself was to keep watch at the window, to make sure the suspect did not escape, while Grant, in his civilian attire, entered the coffee shop to see what the mystery man was doing. Enthusiastic to do some more detective work, the shop assistant sneaked up behind the suspect, peering over his shoulder. He could see that the mystery man was clearly writing a letter. As he sealed and addressed it, Grant could see that it was addressed ‘To either Mr Grimwood or Mr Best, 12 Wellington Terrace, Waterloo Road, Lambeth’. He went out to alert Constable Leaman, who resolutely walked into the shop and collared the suspect.

  Seeing a large policeman standing just behind him seemed to give the mystery man a dreadful shock. He gabbled incoherently and seemed very reluctant to give the letter up, until Constable Leaman pulled it out of his pocket and read the following remarkable communication:

  June 1st, half-past 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

  Gentlemen – A friend of mine, this morning, has made to me a disclosure, in a particular way, that will, I have no doubt, lead to the detection of the villain that committed the atrocious murder. The man he suspects is a good-looking man, with dark or large whiskers, thin made, nearly about six feet. You will excuse me from writing his name and address, for many reasons. He is by profession a Baptist and member of Abstinence. He is considered by many a most singular character: a man that has been well educated. Formerly, in his first wife’s time, in great prosper
ity; is now in great poverty and distress from two wicked rebellious children. I dare not, on any account, give you his name, but he lives not far from Granby Street, Waterloo Road; is by trade a cooper; served his time to Mr. George Davis, cooper, of Limehouse; was bound at Cooper’s-hall in the year 1800; can talk several languages. His father was nearly 50 years porter at Lyon’s Inn, in the Strand. He would suffer anything, I believe, yea die sooner than take an oath.

  Constable Leaman read and reread this curious missive. Did it describe one man or two, and was the singular Baptist cooper of Granby Street also the suspected murderer? The only way to resolve this matter, he decided, was to take the mystery man into custody.1

  The very same afternoon, Constable Leaman brought his prisoner before the Lambeth Street magistrates. The constable had found his charge, who had steadfastly refused to give his name, very odd indeed. George Grant, who was also present, said that the only thing that had induced him to think the prisoner was not right in the head was that when the rain came down in torrents, he had still kept walking through the streets. The prisoner was sternly cautioned by the magistrate Mr Norton: the charge against him was a serious one, and he had better tell the whole truth of the matter, and stop his prevaricating. Reluctantly, the mystery man gave his name as John Owen, a jobbing cooper by trade, and a native of Wales. He was a poor, hard-working man, he said, a Baptist and a member of the Temperance Society. He resided at No. 5 Cottage Place, Granby Street near Waterloo Road. Although some people might consider him insane, he would assure the bench this was not the case, although his mind was very distressed owing to the conduct of two of his children. If he seemed confused or incoherent, it was because his sensitive nervous system had been so very badly rattled by the shock of being made a prisoner.