by Jan Bondeson
After this day of unmitigated disaster, Richard Carter and Charles Frederick Field must have been the two most low-spirited men in London. They had both had high hopes that the day would bring a vital breakthrough, but the result had been even more contradiction and confusion. The coroner and the inspector agreed that Owen was a worthless character, but Mr Carter still wanted to pursue the Catherine Edwin lead in spite of the inspector’s misgivings. It was his wish that Inspector Field would take Catherine Edwin round all the places she had described to look for the Foreigner. The glum inspector reluctantly agreed. He ‘afterwards followed one of the witnesses home, found that she was a gay woman living in Berkley Street West’.2 This may well have been the mysterious Julia Seymour.
8
WILFUL MURDER AGAINST SOME PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN
Tuesday 5 June 1838 must have been one of the most dismal days in the life of Charles Frederick Field. In his diary, the professional policeman tersely told that he:
Went in company with Sgt Price to the residence of the witness Edwins. It being the coroner’s wish that she should accompany me to the different places where she had met the Foreigner she stated in her evidence she was in the habit of meeting with the deceased. Went with her to Piccadilly, Regent Circus, Leicester Square, also to the pastry cooks she had mentioned in her evidence, and many places of public resort for Foreigners, in the evening went to the Opera House but saw no person answering to the description this witness gave of him.1
But in reality, the day was one of unceasing humiliation. As the exasperated inspector told a journalist from The Globe, Catherine Edwin was on her worst behaviour throughout. First they went to Mrs Rosedale’s confectioner’s shop, which Catherine Edwin confidently pointed out as the one where she and Eliza had met the Foreigner. But when Inspector Field asked her to come into the shop, she ‘positively refused to go in with him, making use of some frivolous pretext for her conduct’. The inspector found that there was no private room, as Catherine Edwin had confidently stated at the inquest. They then proceeded to the Regent Circus, where the amusement started in earnest. Catherine Edwin pointed out one passer-by after another as the Foreigner, but when questioned by the inspector, they all turned out to be respectable people. After this kind of fun had been going on for more than three hours, Catherine Edwin finally declared that the Foreigner was not there.2
In the evening, Inspector Field took Catherine Edwin to the Opera House. This disreputable young woman tried her old tricks again, pointing out one man after another to the exasperated inspector, and then recanting, saying that he was not all that like Eliza Grimwood’s sinister companion after all. When she began openly plying her trade as a prostitute, and even pointing out Field as her ‘protector’, he finally called it a day and quietly left the theatre. On his way home, he must have wondered why he ever left the stage to take up the precarious position as an inspector of police.
On Tuesday 6 June, the stalwart inspector did his best to rally his weary troops, who were still searching the dry docks under Waterloo Road and Bridge and the tops of houses nearby, trying to find the murder weapon. The drains in the neighbourhood were searched by a party of workmen under the direction of Mr Gwilt, surveyor to the commissions of sewers for Surrey and Kent.3 Meanwhile, Inspector Field went to a building site in the Kent Road, where Hubbard used to work. Questioning the bricklayers at the site, he found out that Hubbard had not been held in high regard by his former workmates, and that he ‘had treated his former wife with a great deal of ill usage when she lived with him’.
Inspector Field also had another good idea. With regard to the forensic evidence against Hubbard, a crucial question was how many shirts he had possessed prior to the murder and how many clean ones he could now produce. This inquiry should really have been made at a much earlier stage. Still, the inspector ‘saw the laundress who washed for him, ascertained how many shirts he had, made Enquiries in the neighbourhood about him’.4 It turned out that Hubbard had possessed seven shirts, in various states of repair. Mary Glover told the inspector that Eliza had more than once complained of Hubbard’s darned and worn shirts, and spoken of buying some linen to have some new shirts made for him, but this had never been acted upon. Mary Glover said that Eliza had not cared very much for household chores, leaving most of them to her servant Mary Fisher. It had in fact been Mary Glover herself who had taken care of Hubbard’s shirts. She had numbered them from No. 1 to No. 7 and of these, No. 5 could not be found. Had this bloodstained shirt been discarded by Hubbard after the murder?
The next day, the police operation searching the neighbourhood for the murder weapon continued. Inspector Field also found time to investigate the claim of the man Cubitt, that Hubbard had been down to the toll gate on Waterloo Bridge early after the murder, but only to discover that it had probably been Mr Best who had approached the police constable standing there. Mary Glover had told the inspector that about a year ago, Hubbard had gone to work at a building site in Essex. Eliza had become ‘uneasy about him forming a connection with another female. She went after him and fetched him back. They were very good friends after.’5
Finding this a worthwhile lead, Inspector Field went to investigate in person. Along with Edmond Champneys, the Epping local constable, he managed to find the cottage where Hubbard had lodged with a woman and her two daughters. A bricklayer told them that, indeed, Hubbard had presented himself as a single man, and paid particular attention to one of the daughters. One day, Eliza came to claim him as her husband. When confronting Hubbard in a public house, she had slapped his face hard, drawing blood. Hubbard had raised his hand but not struck her. Eliza and Hubbard had then made peace and he had agreed to return to London with her. When they went to the cottage to get Hubbard’s effects, another angry altercation ensued between Eliza and Hubbard’s paramour. Her sister tried to make peace between the infuriated females, but her intervention did not have the desired result, since Eliza sent her reeling with a bloody nose. As the thoughtful inspector was preparing to leave, the bricklayer handed him a dirty garment. Since he had read in the newspapers that the police were investigating Hubbard’s shirts, he thought he ought to mention that his fellow bricklayer had left one of his shirts behind during his stay in Essex. Inspector Field could see that embroidered on the inside of the collar was the figure 5.
When the inquest continued on 8 June, Inspector Field and his men had devoted some further time to investigating the antecedents of John Owen, the former star witness. Mr George Francis, a leading member of the Philanthropic Society, took the oath to testify that in his opinion, Owen could not be relied upon at all. When the Welshman had applied for support from his society to feed his starving children, Francis had gone to his house and found a teenage girl and several young boys. The girl had been ‘nearly naked, and in a wretched condition’. The place was a filthy, near-derelict hovel. Owen had received some money from the philanthropists and the promise of more to come. But when passing a public house a few days later, Mr Francis had seen the alleged teetotaller sitting at the bar, swigging heartily from a glass of beer! He became suspicious and made some inquiries in the neighbourhood, soon finding out that John Owen, alias Owen Owen, was a conniving liar and trickster. None of the ‘children’ he had shown the philanthropist were his own – the ‘daughter’ was a common prostitute who lodged in his house, and the ‘sons’ were street ragamuffins recruited by this Welsh Fagin for his elaborate charade. Mr Bryan, landlord of the Bell public house, corroborated the philanthropist’s testimony with regard to Owen’s drinking habits. Some spectators and jurors commented that they had themselves lent Owen money after hearing his pathetic stories about starving children, only to discover that it was all untrue.6
A young lad named William Clements had seen Owen walking through Granby Street the evening after his first appearance in court, followed by a crowd of people who were teasing him for his involvement in the Grimwood case. Clements was surprised when a well-dressed gentleman came up and gave
Owen some silver coins, saying, ‘Don’t say too much,’ and, ‘Mind what you’re about.’ He suspected that this might be the murderer bribing the old man to perjure himself.
When Owen was recalled, he had to face many a jibe and jeer from the jury and spectators. Firstly, he was challenged with the evidence from the lad Clements. After having ‘entered into a rambling statement as to the accuracy and inaccuracy of his memory’, Owen admitted that a gentleman had approached him after the inquest at the York Hotel and spoken to him kindly. He had offered Owen a pint of porter but the stalwart teetotaller had refused. Instead, the kind gentleman had given him sixpence. Owen said that he did not like being laughed at in a public room, since it was painful to his feelings. The coroner retorted that he had a public duty to perform and that Owen had to answer his questions. The Welshman could not deny that he had applied for money from the Philanthropic Society. When asked whether he had a young woman living in his house, he truculently replied, ‘I don’t think I have a right to answer that question. It has nothing to do with the case, and I will not answer it.’
‘Now, will you answer that question!’ the coroner demanded.
‘It is an indelicate question, and I won’t answer it. I’ll go to prison first. The newspapers have made use of my name in a very unwarrantable manner. Every person now says “There goes John Owen!”’
Finally, he had to admit that he slept in the same room as this girl. When asked whether they actually shared the same bed, he broke into incoherent exclamations about God and his soul, and pointed out that ‘he bore an excellent private character’.
When the coroner asked, ‘Was she a modest girl?’ Owen guardedly answered, ‘Yes, I believe so.’ He then ‘entered into an extraordinary lengthy statement in reference to his mother’s death, and other circumstances not related to the inquiry, which called forth the hissing of those present’.
Inspector Field and his men had also found a neighbour of Owen’s, with whom the Welshman had discussed the murder. Owen had said that he had seen a man he suspected to be the killer, but he had then asked, ‘Supposing he is not the man, if the murderer is found out, what can they do with me afterwards?’ The coroner indicated the spectator whom Owen had denounced as the murderer just a few days ago and asked if the Welshman still believed he was the man with the bloody hands standing in Waterloo Road the morning after the murder. Owen replied ‘No, I do not’ and declared himself ready to try again. There was loud hissing from the spectators as the jury formally pronounced that Owen was an impostor and that they would not take his word. The Welshman skulked out.
The humiliation of Owen must have acted as a tonic to the weary Inspector Field, who must have had enough of the Welshman’s rantings about sensitive nerves, wicked children and teetotalism. But the inspector had another fish to fry. When he took the stand, he described his ludicrous day out with Catherine Edwin. There had been no private room at the pastry cook’s, as she had confidently stated on oath. Her story or hearing of the murder from the doctor who was bleeding her was also untrue. The persistent inspector had tracked down the doctor in question and he had testified that it had in fact been Catherine Edwin herself who had been talking very much about the murder of Eliza Grimwood. The inspector had also found out that, although Catherine Edwin had represented herself to be 20 years old, she was in fact only 16. When questioned on 4 June, she had denied ever meeting Hubbard, but the inspector had evidence that the two had in fact met clandestinely at the murder house. When asked by the coroner whether Catherine Edwin was at all to be believed, the inspector replied, ‘I should say not.’
The theatre waitress Charlotte Parker was then called to describe her meeting with Eliza and the Foreigner the evening of the murder. She added that Eliza had been a much better class of customer than the other ‘ladies’ who frequented the Strand Theatre: she had always been elegantly dressed, steady in her behaviour, and never the worse for drink. She still steadfastly denied that the Foreigner had spoken with a foreign accent. The pastry cook Mary Rosedale testified that she could indeed remember a foreign-looking gentleman and three young ladies coming into her shop and having refreshments in an adjoining room about a week before the murder, but she could not identify Catherine Edwin as one of them.
Constable Goff, who had been allowed to accompany Inspector Field to the inquest, next took the stand. He told the jury that last Monday, Hubbard had received an unexpected visitor at the murder house, namely Catherine Edwin. She had introduced herself as a great friend of Eliza’s, who had once seen her with the supposed murderer. When confronted with this damning statement, Catherine Edwin responded that when giving evidence, she had forgotten all about her visit to the murder house; any way, she had spoken to Hubbard in the kitchen, not in the parlour as the policeman had said. It was none of their business how old she was, nor did it have any relevance to the proceedings. She made a rude gesture to some of the jurymen when they openly declared that there was not one word of truth in her various statements, and pulled a face at Inspector Field as Constable Goff escorted her out of the sessions room.
After the annoying Catherine Edwin had finally been removed, Constable Goff again took the stand. When asked by the coroner how Hubbard had behaved since the murder, Goff said that his prisoner had been very dejected. Once he had said, ‘Oh, my dear Eliza, my dear Eliza! Would to God …’ and then muttered something that Goff could not hear. He had once had a nightmare, during which he called out, ‘Eliza! Oh, my dear Eliza!’ in a loud voice. When Goff had come into his bedroom, Hubbard ‘was looking very wild’ and did not appear to recognise Goff. He said that he had been dreaming of his poor Eliza and asked for some beer to help him go back to sleep.
Constable Goff was also instrumental in solving another minor mystery. When he had been the first policeman on the scene the morning after the murder, he had asked the surgeon Cooke if this was really a case of suicide. The careless medical man had replied, ‘No doubt of it!’ At that time the chamber utensil was still present in the murder room. It might well be that the surgeon had washed his hands in the chamber pot and then taken it out to the kitchen.
The diligent Constable Goff had also found a new witness who had some interesting things to tell. Ann Sage lived with her married sister at No. 19 Bond Street. The night of the murder, the sister kept going up and down stairs because her husband was very ill. Since Ann Sage could not sleep, she diverted herself by looking out through the back window, which was facing the back of Wellington Terrace. At about a quarter to three, she could see a light in Hubbard’s back parlour. Was this the murderer leaving the house? Ann Sage could not swear with certainty that the light was in Hubbard’s house, however, since the houses in Wellington Terrace were much higher up than those in her own street.
A busybody named Ryman, who had previously been pestering Inspector Field with various theories about the murder, next made an appearance. He said that he was living at No. 34 Waterloo Road and that seven o’clock the morning after the murder, he had seen the servant Mary Fisher walking past his house. Surely this was a mysterious circumstance that might imply that she was protecting Hubbard? But Inspector Field indicated that this might well have a perfectly natural explanation. When called, Mary Fisher readily explained that she had been out twice early in the morning, first to the Pear Tree public house to purchase some gin and brandy to calm the nerves of Hubbard and the other inhabitants of the murder house, and secondly to the cheesemongers at No. 35 Waterloo Road to buy some cheese and eggs. She had told the cheesemonger, ‘Oh, sir, you will never see my mistress again, for she has been murdered!’ When asked whether Hubbard had desired her to change her evidence after the murder, she indignantly replied, ‘He has not, so help me God!’
After all the evidence had been heard, the coroner proceeded to sum up. He did not believe that any juryman would doubt ‘that a murder of the most horrid and atrocious character has been committed’. Apart from that obvious fact, the case remained one of great mystery. Mr Carter emp
hasised that Hubbard had not been taken in a lie and that his story about what had happened the morning of the murder was backed up by other witnesses. The blood on his trousers had been satisfactorily accounted for. As for Owen’s testimony, it seemed hardly credible that a murderer would lose all regard for his own safety and make use of loud exclamations at the front door, in full view of a stranger. Owen had seemed far from sane, and although he had allegedly picked Hubbard out during his clandestine visit to the murder house, he had failed to do so in court. Mr Carter did not attach much importance to evidence of the girl Chaplin that Hubbard had been threatening Eliza, since it was not corroborated by any other witness.
Many witnesses testified that the evening of the murder, Eliza had brought home a customer. According to the evidence of the servant girl Mary Fisher, this man had remained with Eliza for some time. From the surgeon Cooke’s evidence, Eliza had been dead about four hours when he came to the house, and thus the murder had taken place between one and two in the morning. Mr Carter suggested that after they had had intercourse, the customer had tried to ‘depart without a gratuity’. When Eliza had tried to prevent his escape, or call Hubbard, the Foreigner had slashed at her neck with his knife and then cut her throat. Using the lit candlestick, he had then noiselessly let himself out, taking the murder weapon with him.
