by Jan Bondeson
Corder and Maria Marten bury their infant, from the first volume of the New Newgate Calendar (London 1863).
The Red Barn and its interior, from the Romance of Crime.
As we know, there was an invented link between the murders of Maria Marten and Eliza Grimwood from an early time, since it was claimed that ‘at the period of the murder of Maria Martin, by Corder, Eliza Grimwood was at that particular time on a visit to a friend’s house in the immediate vicinity, and that she was the first person who entered the Red Barn where the murder was committed, and beheld the mangled corpse of the ill-fated girl’.10 This is clearly untrue, since we know that Corder buried Maria underneath the floor of the barn, and that she was eventually dug up by her father after her stepmother’s extraordinary dream. But there are many other parallels between the murders of Maria Marten and Eliza Grimwood, since both were variations on the theme of the ‘beautiful female murder victim’. There was intense public interest not only in the murder of Eliza Grimwood, but also in her past life, and her ‘fall’ from respectable womanhood into becoming a common prostitute, ‘available’ to any paying customer, just like Maria Marten had been ‘kept’ by Corder and her previous string of lovers. In the public mind, Hubbard was of course the obvious murderer: a detestable prostitute’s bully, as bad as Corder, and capable of murder and any other crime. The newspaper coverage of the Grimwood mystery was equal to that in the Red Barn case, with some very dubious additions, like publishing a picture of Eliza’s stays, and dwelling at length on the necrophiliac horrors of the autopsy findings. The number of handbills on the Grimwood case is said to have exceeded all precedents. A crowd kept vigil outside the murder house, and then we have the matter of the bizarre auction arranged by the brothers Grimwood, selling Eliza’s belongings for very good prices to a throng of the curious, and the exhibition of Eliza’s dog in a public house. Moreover, there were two illustrated novels about the Grimwood mystery, published in 1841 and 1864.
The murder of Maria Marten in the Red Barn, from the first volume of the New Newgate Calendar (London 1863).
Mrs Marten’s extraordinary dream, from the first volume of the New Newgate Calendar (London 1863).
In October 1841, an illustrated novel about the murder of Eliza Grimwood was advertised in the Penny Satirist newspaper. To stir up interest, the first part of Eliza Grimwood, A Domestic Legend of the Waterloo Road was given away to every purchaser of that newspaper. The second part would contain the wrappers and frontispiece.11 As is usual for a ‘penny dreadful’, not many copies remain of this rare novel, which is adorned with some distinctively amateurish drawings of the main characters.12 It is a strange mixture of fact and fiction, beginning with the quotes:
‘Out damned spot!’ – Lady Macbeth
‘Who murdered Eliza Grimwood?’ – Popular Question
In this novel, Eliza Grimwood is the orphaned daughter of a brave sergeant major, who perished in the wars against Napoleon, and his Spanish wife. She is brought up by her paternal grandparents in the countryside. But her uncle Jacob Grimwood wants to prevent her from getting her inheritance. He plots with villainous nobleman the Earl of Rakemore, his sister Lady Mary Johnstone and a vicious hag named Mrs Bruin to achieve her downfall. Eliza’s simple-minded friend Kate Elmore overhears the earl speaking to Mrs Bruin and kills the latter in self-defence, but goes mad from the shock and is abducted by Lady Mary. The wicked earl is thus free to seduce Eliza, only to cast her aside as soon as she is pregnant.
Poor Eliza has to leave her bucolic idyll and go to London, where she has an abortion. Contemplating suicide, she walks out onto Waterloo Bridge, but instead she actually saves another desperate female who tries to jump off the bridge. Eliza is employed as a servant by the intended suicide victim’s grateful family and for a while things are looking brighter, but soon the earl reappears, seduces her again and lures her into a false marriage. Thus, in this bizarre novel, ‘the Countess’ is a countess for real, or at least so she thinks.
An advertisement for the penny dreadful Eliza Grimwood, A Domestic Legend of the Waterloo Road, from the Penny Satirist, 16 October 1841.
Eliza Grimwood enters the Earl’s carriage. An illustration from the penny dreadful Eliza Grimwood, A Domestic Legend of the Waterloo Road, like the following one.
The author then appears to entirely run out of ideas. Eliza is left behind, installed in the earl’s cosy Baker Street love-nest, as the action instead follows the earl’s hirelings Davidson and Croker. They drink and revel, Davidson shoots a man in a duel, and the corpse is clandestinely buried. Myriad other obscure characters are introduced: the jovial Mother Royster, the penniless journalist George Augustus Crowe, the amorous Squire Greville, and the mysterious Rachel Elliott, who is followed everywhere by a huge Newfoundland dog.
The false marriage between the Earl and Eliza.
Eventually, after not less than 130 pages have been spent on the antics of these secondary characters, the wicked earl reappears. He wants to marry the wealthy Ellen Daleford and orders Davidson and the equally wicked Bow Street policeman Bob Badger to abduct her. But Rachel Elliott sets her Newfoundland dog on the two villains and Badger is torn to pieces by the infuriated animal, before Davidson shoots the dog and kidnaps Ellen Daleford. Davidson then visits Eliza Grimwood and tells her the truth about her ‘marriage’. Poor Eliza again sinks low, and she has to enter a brothel. In a quick tying together of the story, Eliza one day recognises Davidson when he is fleeing from the police, and to keep her quiet, he murders her. The book ends with some newspaper articles being reproduced, to support the mock-authenticity of the murder.
Eliza Grimwood, A Domestic Legend of the Waterloo Road is a very odd book indeed. Its author did not lack talent, and some of the descriptions of the seamier side of London were clearly done from life. In his Fiction for the Working Man 1830–1850, Louis James even calls it the outstanding book among the various novels of the time dealing with particular crimes and criminals.13 Still, the untidy structure of the plot would suggest that either the author was incorporating some other material written earlier into the story, or perhaps rather that there was more than one author, with one ‘penny-a-line’ hack writer taking over the manuscript started by another colleague and turning a gothic romance into a study of London low life.
A later historian has wrongly claimed that Hubbard fled the country and that it was the unpopular Duke of Cumberland who was lampooned as Eliza’s murderer, instead of his Teutonic equal the Duke of Brunswick.14
The second novel about the murder of Eliza Grimwood appeared as late as 1864. As far as can be ascertained, Eliza Grimwood, or the Mystery of Crime was never published in book form, only as penny parts of the New Newgate Calendar.15 Its anonymous author had some knowledge of the murder case, but clearly also an overactive imagination, and a predilection for the cheap gothic novels of the time. Its full-page illustrations in the New Newgate Calendar are quite attractive.
In this novel, innocent young Eliza Grimwood grows up in the Kent countryside. She has two admirers: her cousin Tom Hubbard and the wealthy young squire Lionel Faversham. Since Hubbard is a sinister-looking creature, Eliza prefers the young squire, and she is seduced by him. As the novel expresses it ‘from the day she yielded her honour to Squire Faversham, her fate was sealed – all was lost’. The enraged Hubbard tries to stab Lionel, but the squire is saved by his Newfoundland dog. Lionel is a caddish fellow, however: he deserts poor Eliza and goes to Vienna for some ‘fun’ with the ladies. Having recovered from the dog bites, the sinister Hubbard plans to murder his faithless cousin by a ruined mill, but she is saved by Rattling Rob, ‘the Idiot of the Mill’. Eliza travels to London, where she is reunited with Lionel and installed as his mistress. But a vicious libertine, Captain Desborough, sends his burglar friend Jem the Duffer to murder Lionel and abduct Eliza. The amorous captain tries to seduce Eliza, but rather understandably, she wants nothing to do with him. He then instead plans to rape her, but at the critical time, another gang of b
urglars break into the house. The captain is kidnapped, tortured and killed, and Eliza liberated.
The timorous young Eliza Grimwood leaves her parental home to meet her seducer at an old mill. A fanciful illustration taken from the New Newgate Chronicle (London 1863), like the following five.
Eliza is confronted by the jealous Hubbard, who threatens to murder her.
Next, Eliza becomes the mistress of the wealthy banker Marmaduke Stanley, who surrounds her with luxury. But Stanley finds out that she has an affair with the dashing burglar Flash Harry, who had helped to rescue her from Captain Desborough. Stanley tries to murder Harry, but the muscular burglar kills him instead. Eliza joins the gang of burglars and takes part in some of their raids. So does Hubbard, who has come to London to seek his fortune as a burglar. Harry rents a house for Eliza, and for a while they live happily, but the jealous Eliza finds out about his other mistress and betrays him to the police. She instead moves in with Hubbard in the house in Wellington Terrace. She also becomes a prostitute: ‘Lost to all shame, Eliza Grimwood now boldly pursued a life of infamy.’ Hubbard, who really loves her, vainly tries to change her ways, but she scoffs and jeers at him, saying, ‘the veriest stranger that crosses my path I prefer to you!’ In May 1838, the jealous Hubbard often follows her around, so also on that fatal May evening when she meets a foreign-looking man and brings him back to the house in Wellington Terrace. In this version of the tale, the Foreigner leaves without incident. The jealous Hubbard comes sneaking into Eliza’s bedroom, seizes her and cuts her throat with great violence. Nobody in the house hears Eliza’s feeble cry for help.
Lionel Faversham is murdered by the burglars.
Captain Desborough, Eliza’s next ‘protector’, is held captive by the burglars Grinder and Gunpowder Bill.
Due to the extreme scarcity of the 1863–64 New Newgate Calendar, Eliza Grimwood, or the Mystery of Crime has eluded the interest of the literary historians; it has not been appreciated that the murder of Eliza Grimwood inspired not just one but two novels. Eliza Grimwood, or the Mystery of Crime makes rather more sense than its chaotic predecessor, although the novel is a typical ‘penny dreadful’ of the time, full of murder and bloodshed. Both novels highlight the ‘fall’ of Eliza when she was seduced by the Earl of Rakemore or by Squire Faversham; this makes her an outcast from decent womanhood, but also makes her interesting and sexually ‘available’ to the lustful male characters in the novels. In Eliza Grimwood, A Domestic Legend of the Waterloo Road, the heroine is just a cardboard gothic heroine, wandering from peril unto peril, whereas in Eliza Grimwood, or the Mystery of Crime, she is more spirited, taking part in burglaries for the fun of it, choosing her male companions from her own will – preferring Flash Harry to Marmaduke Stanley, for example – and choosing prostitution in Waterloo Road instead of monogamy with the creature Hubbard. Neither novel has any valuable insights with regard to the identity of the perpetrator of the murder of Eliza Grimwood. There is nothing to suggest that Eliza possessed any dangerous knowledge about any burglar or other miscreant. Nor is there any evidence that Hubbard showed any jealousy towards Eliza, or that he was following her around or spying on her.
The sad end of Captain Desborough.
Eliza Grimwood and her burglar friends are nearly captured by the Bow Street police.
In the 1830s, 23-year-old Helen Jewett was an upmarket young prostitute in New York City. She was based at a brothel at No. 41 Thomas Street, but still had freedom to choose her clients herself, and to keep a healthy proportion of her earnings. In the early hours of 10 April 1836, Helen was found murdered in her room. She had been struck several heavy blows to the head with a hatchet, and the murderer had then set fire to her bed. The brothel madam had seen a man she knew as Frank Rivers in Helen’s room, and he was tracked down and arrested. His real name was Richard Robinson, and he was just 19 years old, but still a steady customer of Helen’s. No immediate motive for him to murder her could be discerned, and he protested his innocence with impressive candour. There was immediate media interest in the murder of Helen Jewett. She had been a well-known New York prostitute, and the street was thronged with people gawping at the murder house.16
The murder of Helen Jewett.
James Gordon Bennett, the editor of the New York Herald, published a breathless and salacious report of his alleged visit to the murder room: ‘The perfect figure – the exquisite limbs – the fine face – the beautiful bust – all, all surpassed in every respect the Venus de Medicis … For a few moments I was lost in admiration at this extraordinary sight – a beautiful female corpse – that surpassed the finest statues of antiquity.’
There was fascination with the previous career of Helen Jewett: she had run away from home in her teens, ‘fallen’ after being seduced by some local Lothario, and gone on to become a prostitute in Boston and New York. James Gordon Bennett and the New York Herald argued in favour of Robinson’s innocence, even suggesting that the police and the brothel madam were deliberately trying to falsify a solution to the murder. In contrast, many working-class people believed that Robinson was the guilty man, a vampire preying on the vulnerable Helen Jewett, who in the end had murdered her for the perverted pleasure of it. But when Robinson was on trial for murder, the witnesses from the brothel were not believed, and he walked free as a result. There was outrage among the common people of New York, who believed that Robinson had used the money of his wealthy relatives to purchase an acquittal. Robinson changed his name to Parmelly and moved away from New York; he died from a fever in Louisville, Kentucky, in August 1855. The old murder house at No. 41 Thomas Street, New York, stood as late as 1899, which is admirable considering the transatlantic fascination with wrecking balls and newly constructed tall buildings.17
Helen Jewett and the suspect Robinson.
In July 1841, 21-year-old New York cigar shop assistant Mary Cecilia Rogers told her boyfriend that she would be away for a few days, visiting her aunt and some other family members. Three days later, her corpse was found floating in the Hudson River at Hoboken. There was bruising and swelling to the throat, indicating murder.
Mary had been born in Connecticut in or around 1820, but her father had died in a steamboat explosion, and a few years later her mother moved to New York City and opened a boarding house. At the age of just 17, Mary got a job as a sales assistant at Mr John Anderson’s Tobacco Emporium at No. 319 Broadway. Her charm and youthful good looks made her very popular among those who frequented the cigar shop, and she was a valuable asset to Mr Anderson, since she drew customers from both near and far. In 1838, Mary had gone missing for a few days, and there were rumours that she had committed suicide or undergone an abortion, but she was soon back at the Tobacco Emporium safe and well.
The title page of a pamphlet on the murder of Mary Rogers.
Three years later , the brutality of the killing, the youth and beauty of the victim, and her previous notoriety among the New York low life, made sure that the slaying of the ‘beautiful cigar girl’ became yet another ‘media murder’. There were divergent hypotheses concerning who was responsible. Some commentators suspected that she had died from a botched abortion, quite possibly at an establishment run by a certain Madame Restell, and that her body had later been dumped into the river; this hardly explains the bruising to the throat and the other indications that she was murdered, however. Her boyfriend Daniel Payne was suspected by some, and he later committed suicide under dismal circumstances, but he had a modestly solid alibi. Others pointed the finger at the young midshipman Philip Spencer, who was later hanged for setting up a mutiny. Her jilted suitor Alfred Crommelin and her employer John Anderson were other suspects. The author Daniel Stashower brought forward the hypothesis that Mary Rogers had indeed arranged to have another abortion, but that she had died as a result of the abortionist’s clumsiness, and since Mary was so very well known in New York, it was decided to fake a murder to lead suspicions away from the feticidal bungler. There was as much speculation about the unso
lved murder of Mary Rogers as there had been in London about the case of Eliza Grimwood; the murder inspired several pamphlets, and also Poe’s The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, a fictionalised version of the case in which Marie is found dead in the Seine.18
Another pamphlet about the murder of Mary Rogers.
The murder of Mary Bickford.
One of the pamphlets about the life and murder of Mary Bickford.
In October 1845, 21-year-old Mary Bickford was found murdered in a disreputable boarding house in Cedar Lane, Boston. The killer had cut her throat, before setting fire to the room and absconding down the stairs. Mary Bickford had deserted her husband in Bath, Maine, and gone to Massachusetts with her lover, who soon deserted her. She fell low for a while, as a prostitute in a Boston brothel, before she met the giddy young reveller Albert Tirrell, who set her up as his mistress. Together, they squandered Tirrell’s substantial inheritance, living in various hotels and boarding houses, and drinking and partying to excess. In spite of her obvious moral shortcomings, Mary was young and attractive, with dark hair and regular features. Tirrell was infatuated with her, although he suspected that she might well have been unfaithful to him more than once. There was immediate newspaper fascination with the murder of the beautiful Mary Bickford: although she had been leading a vicious life, she was depicted as a fallen woman and a sentimental murder victim; an unsophisticated country girl who had been lured into adultery after her marriage.19 Tirrell was tried for the murder, but due to the lack of motive, eyewitnesses and conclusive evidence, and the exhortations of a high-quality legal team, he was acquitted. There were several books and pamphlets about the Bickford case, as well as an illustrated biography of the heroine herself, detailing her downfall that would one day lead to murder. As for Tirrell, he eked out the remainder of his life in obscurity, dying in 1880.
