Walter Dew: The Man Who Caught Crippen

by Connell, Nicholas

  Dew’s daughter Kate was living in South Africa with her husband Jack, supposedly a prominent member of the African Labour party, and when her father’s book was published a local paper spoke to her about it. The newspaper stated that Kate had helped Dew in compiling the book. Not so, Dew retorted: ‘No such assistance was ever given or asked for.’ Furthermore Dew ‘was not aware my daughter’s husband was a member of the Labour party, of whom I am not in sympathy’.8

  Around the time that I Caught Crippen was published, the Bromley and Kentish Times ran an article entitled ‘Dream Solved Mysteries’. According to this story, a friend of Cora Crippen had dreamed of Cora’s demise, and if it had not been for this vision the police would not have found Cora’s remains under the hearthstone, and the crime would never have been revealed.

  Dew subscribed to a press cutting association who supplied him with cuttings relating to him and the Crippen case. He soon learned of the ‘Dream Solved Mysteries’ article, and wrote to the newspaper. Dew said (somewhat unconvincingly) that ‘under ordinary circumstances, I should have taken no notice’, but as his autobiography had just been released he was concerned that people would ask him why the dream incident had not been included in the book. He therefore wanted to set the record straight:

  I hasten to say that the remains were not buried under the hearthstone, but under the bricks in the coal cellar. The search was not instituted and insisted upon by a person who had a grim dream concerning Belle Elmore. It was my own perseverance which led to the discovery of the remains and capture of Crippen.9

  A brief comment in the ‘London Playgoers’ Club’ column of The Times newspaper, in October 1938, led to Dew’s next public defence of the handling of the Crippen Case. The column contained a review of the play Dearly Beloved Wife by Jeanne de Casalis, which was based upon the Crippen case. The reviewer remembered Crippen as ‘the brave and gentle little dentist who yet murdered the termagant who was his wife’. The offending phrase in the review was ‘the murderer’s successful disarming of police suspicion’.

  Dew had not mellowed since his 1911 libel victories. His heated response to the editor of The Times was published three weeks later:

  I am the officer who had sole charge of the case from the moment it was reported to police that Mrs. Crippen was missing. It was I who discovered the remains and later chased and captured Crippen in Canada. Therefore it must refer to me when it said: ‘Crippen successfully disarmed police suspicion.’

  Will you permit me to say that from the moment I took up the inquiries concerning the missing Mrs. Crippen I never for one minute (except for a few hours sleep) relaxed my efforts to clear this matter up, until on the Wednesday I dug up the remains of this unfortunate woman in the cellar at Hilldrop Crescent. This was all within a few days of my undertaking the inquiry, and the very day after I interviewed Crippen I circulated the description of Mrs. Crippen far and wide.

  It is strange that if police suspicion was disarmed that I should have done this and persisted in my efforts until I succeeded in discovering the gruesome remains in the cellar, and all within such a short time, and it must be remembered that until those remains were found there was no suggestion of Crippen having committed any crime whatever.

  I do not for a moment suggest that your critic intends to cast any reflection on me – in all probability he does not know me – but some who read it might take it in a different light.10

  Coincidentally, another play on the Crippen theme was put on at Worthing some years later. It was called They Fly by Twilight.11 Dew does not appear to have commented on the play, but it was performed just one month after the death of his resident sister-in-law Iris. Dew fell ill soon afterwards. He died at the Wee Hoose on 16 December 1947, from haemapericardium due to the rupture of his heart muscle. He was eighty-four years old. His funeral was held three days later. Dew was buried in the same plot as Iris Idle, at Worthing Cemetery. Obituaries appeared in both of Worthing’s local newspapers,12 as well as in The Times.13

  Without Dr Crippen, Dew could have been just another Scotland Yard man who, like so many of his contemporaries, spent his well-earned years of retirement by the sea. Despite his rise from being a humble seed merchant’s clerk to Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard, and his flawless professional reputation, earned through nearly thirty years of hard work, he would not have enjoyed the celebrity that capturing Crippen had brought him. But Dew had caught the most infamous murderer of his generation. He had risked his reputation by pursuing Crippen across the Atlantic without knowing for sure if his quarry was the fugitive doctor. Furthermore, he had brought his prisoner safely back to face justice in England under the scrutiny of the world’s media. He would forever more be remembered as the man who caught the infamous Dr Crippen.

  APPENDIX 1

  Aftermath of the Crippen Case

  39 HILLDROP CRESCENT

  In November 1888 Hilldrop Crescent played a small part in the Jack the Ripper saga. A letter was sent to a Mr MacKean, who lived in the street. It was signed ‘Jack Ripper’ and the author threatened to pay a visit to MacKean either at his house or shop. After the Crippen case there was some talk of renaming Hilldrop Crescent. Among the suggestions proposed were Dewdrop Crescent and Filleted Place. The Crescent retained its name (as it does to this day), but bears little resemblance to how it looked in 1910. It was bombed twice in September 1940. No. 39 is now a block of flats named Margaret Bondfield House, after the first British woman Cabinet member (1873–1953).

  SUPERINTENDENT FRANK CASTLE FROEST

  Froest retired from Scotland Yard after thirty-three years’ service on 30 September 1912, at the age of fifty-four. He would later write several fictional crime stories. King George V sent him the following message: ‘Good-bye, Mr. Froest, and God-speed. The detective and police organization in which you have served so long is, in my opinion, the best in the world.’

  Froest moved to Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where he became a Justice of the Peace and an alderman. He died on 7 January 1930 at the General Hospital, Weston-super-Mare, after a long illness, and was buried at Uphill Old Church.

  JOHN NASH AND LIL HAWTHORNE

  In February 1911 the Nashes politely sought compensation from Scotland Yard for loss of earnings incurred through their involvement in the Crippen case, which had led to Lil Hawthorne having to cancel three weeks of engagements in London, Stockton and Glasgow. They estimated that they had lost £125 in fees.

  The Treasury office looked upon their claim sympathetically, saying that ‘these two people have rendered very signal service to the cause of justice, and Inspector [sic] Froest, of New Scotland Yard, is of opinion that, but for their efforts, it is quite possible that this grave crime might never have been discovered’. Consequently they were awarded £100.

  CAPTAIN HENRY GEORGE KENDALL

  Kendall retired from his post as marine superintendent for Canadian Pacific at Surrey Commercial Docks in 1939. He died aged ninety-one in a London nursing home in November 1965. In 1974 the original telegrams he had sent during Crippen’s voyage on the Montrose were sold at auction for £1,600.

  The SS Montrose was sold to the Admiralty in 1914. They intended to fill her holds with concrete and sink her outside Dover harbour as a block ship to deter German U-boats. However, the Montrose broke free from her moorings, drifted and foundered on the Goodwin Sands, where she remained until breaking up in June 1963.

  ETHEL LE NEVE

  Immediately after her acquittal Ethel Le Neve gave her account of the Crippen case to Lloyd’s Weekly News, for which she even dressed up as a boy to be photographed. A transcription of these articles was quickly published in a pamphlet. She gave further accounts of the case in Thomson’s Weekly News between September 1920 and February 1921, and an account of what had happened to her since in the same paper in 1928. Her story was again told in 1955, in a ‘factual novel’ by Ursula Bloom called The Girl Who Loved Crippen.

  Ethel Le Neve was the sole executrix and benefactor of Dr Crippen
’s will. His estate was worth £268 6s 9d, and included his gold-rimmed spectacles. Winston Churchill permitted Le Neve to have a farewell letter Crippen wrote to her on the back of the photograph of her that Crippen had in his cell. This was against the wishes of some of Churchill’s colleagues, who considered it to be an unauthorised communication and feared she may sell the contents to a newspaper. She sailed to America on the Majestic three hours after the execution of Crippen, again using a false name. This time she was ‘Miss Allen’. Le Neve went from New York to Montreal and worked as a typist. She returned to England in 1914, where she got a job as a typist at Hampton’s furnishing store in Trafalgar Square. There she met and married a clerk, Stanley Smith. In 1928 she wrote in Thomson’s Weekly News, ‘I am happy now; happy in the love, the devotion, above all the trust, of an honest man who knows all about my past.’ They had a son and a daughter together. She died in 1967 at Dulwich hospital, aged eighty-four.

  SIR MELVILLE MACNAGHTEN

  Macnaghten remained at Scotland Yard as Assistant Commissioner CID until his retirement in 1913, after two years of declining health. He wrote his memoirs, Days of My Years, in 1914, and died in May 1921.

  PAUL MARTINETTI

  Paul Martinetti died on Boxing Day, 1924, at the British College Hospital. He had been staying at the Mustapha Hotel in Algiers on account of his health.

  RICHARD DAVID MUIR

  Muir was appointed Recorder of Colchester in 1911, and knighted in 1918. In January 1924 he was attacked by a bout of influenza, which developed into double pneumonia, from which he died at his London home. He was buried at Norwood cemetery on 16 January 1924.

  ARTHUR NEWTON

  After the trial of Dr Crippen, Newton was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Law Society and struck off for twelve months. In 1913 he was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude for fraud, and struck off the rolls as a solicitor. Arthur Newton died in 1930 at the age of seventy.

  FREDERICK EDWIN SMITH

  After the acquittal of Ethel Le Neve, Smith’s career flourished. In May 1915 he became Solicitor-General, and in November of that year Attorney-General. The year was capped with his knighthood. Three years later he was made Baron Birkenhead, and created a peer the following year, sitting regularly as Speaker of the House of Lords as Lord Birkenhead. In October 1924 he accepted the office of Secretary of State for India. He died, aged fifty-eight, at London, on 30 September 1930.

  ALFRED TOBIN

  Tobin became Member of Parliament for Preston in 1910 and held the seat until 1915. He received a knighthood in 1919, the same year that his friend F.E. Smith arranged his appointment as Judge of Westminster County Court. Tobin held that position until his retirement from judgeship in 1935. He died at Montreaux on 30 November 1939, aged eighty-three.

  RICHARD EVERARD WEBSTER (LORD ALVERSTONE)

  During the Crippen trial a joke was doing the rounds that was attributed to Alverstone. ‘Oh, the Crippen Case. Tried for the murder of his wife – and she was in court all the time.’ ‘Nonsense.’ ‘She was, indeed. But she was too cut up to say anything.’ Alverstone retired in 1913 on account of ill health, and was made a Viscount. In 1914 his memoirs, Recollections of Bar and Bench, were published. He died in 1915.

  APPENDIX 2

  Dew’s Appearances in Films and Fiction

  Walter Dew has been portrayed several times on film, television and radio, as well as appearing as a character in works of fiction.

  FILMS

  Dr Crippen an Bord (Germany, 1942)

  Oberinspektor Duwell René Deltgen

  Dr Crippen Rudolf Fernau

  There was another German film featuring Crippen, Dr Crippen Lebt (1958), but Dew does not appear in it.

  Dr Crippen (Great Britain, 1962)

  Walter Dew John Arnatt

  Dr Crippen Donald Pleasance

  (Arnatt had previously played Dew in a 1960 stage play, The Little Doctor. Edward Woodward played Dr Crippen.)

  TELEVISION

  The Case of Dr Crippen – 1956, Associated TeleVision Ltd (ITA)

  Walter Dew Philip Lennard

  Dr Crippen Eric Portman

  ‘Investigating Murder’, Horizon – 1968, BBC

  Walter Dew Philip Webb

  Dr Crippen John Cazabon

  Jack the Ripper – 1973, BBC

  Walter Dew Norman Shelley

  The Ladykillers: Miss Elmore – 1981, ITV

  Walter Dew Alan Downer

  Doctor Crippen John Fraser

  Tales From the Black Museum – 1999, Discovery Channel

  The parts of Walter Dew and Crippen were both non-speaking, so unknown extras were used. The production company has no record of who played them.

  The Last Secret of Dr Crippen – 2004, Channel 4

  Walter Dew David Broughton

  Davis Doctor Crippen Terry Francis

  BROADCASTS AND RECORDINGS

  Dr Crippen’s Trial – 12 December 1986, BBC Radio 4

  Walter Dew John Church

  Dr Crippen Bob Sherman

  Saturday Night Theatre: Crippen (Based upon Dr Crippen’s Diary by Emlyn Williams) – 13 November 1993, BBC Radio 4

  Walter Dew Ivor Roberts

  Dr Crippen Charles Kay

  Great British Trials: Dr Crippen – London, Mr Punch, 1999

  Walter Dew Howard Ward

  Dr Crippen Andrew Sachs

  BOOKS

  Doctor Crippen, by Michael Hooker (adapted from the screenplay by Leigh Vance), London, Digit Books, 1963.

  The Private Life of Dr Crippen, by Richard Gordon, London, Heinemann, 1981.

  The False Inspector Dew, by Peter Lovesey, London, Macmillan, 1982.

  The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade, by M.J. Trow, London, Macmillan, 1985.

  Dr Crippen’s Diary, by Emlyn Williams, London, Robson Books, 1987.

  Lestrade and the Leviathan, by M.J. Trow, London, Macmillan, 1987.

  Lestrade and the Ripper, by M.J. Trow, London, Macmillan, 1988.

  All-Consuming Fire, by Andy Lane, London, Doctor Who Books, 1994.

  Crippen: A Novel of Murder, by John Boyne, London, Penguin, 2004.

  VERSES

  The notoriety of the Crippen case led to a number of verses being written, a couple of which mentioned Walter Dew.

  Miss Le Neve, old Dew is waiting

  On the wall for you at Liverpool,

  And he says he saw you sitting

  On the knee of Dr Crippen,

  Dressed in boy’s clothes,

  On the Montrose,

  Miss Le Neve.

  The antiquarian book dealer J.C.G. Hammond recalled that when he was a boy his mother sang him to sleep with the following verse, sung to the tune of ‘Let’s All Go Down the Strand’.

  On came Inspector Dew,

  He said ‘I want you two.

  Come back again to England’s shore

  For the murder of Belle Elmore,

  Crippen and Miss Le Neve.’

  Notes

  Note: Any PRO references refer to Public Record Office documents held at the National Archives.

  PREFACE

  1. In his autobiography Dew said his mother was a Norfolk woman, but she gave her place of birth as Ireland on the 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 census.

  2. Police Review and Parade Gossip, 30 December 1910.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Unfortunately I have been unable to find anything of substance about Kate Morris. Dew wrote next to nothing about her.

  5. Police Review and Parade Gossip, 30 December 1910.

  6. All material from the section on Jack the Ripper, unless otherwise stated, taken from Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook, London, Constable & Robinson, 2000, and Walter Dew, I Caught Crippen, London and Glasgow, Blackie & Son Ltd, 1938.

  7. Pall Mall Gazette, 12 September 1888.

  CHAPTER ONE

  1. Star, 10 September 1888.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1. Star, 5 September
1888.

  2. Morning Advertiser, 10 September 1888.

  3. Star, 8 September 1888.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1. University College London Chadwick Collection.

  2. Leonard Archer Collection (Stewart P. Evans Collection).

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1. PRO CRIM 10/79.

  2. Joseph Hall Richardson, From the City to Fleet Street, London, Stanley Paul & Co., 1927, pp. 277–9.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1. Philip Sugden, The Complete History of Jack the Ripper, London, Constable & Robinson, 2002, pp. xx–xxi.

  2. Morning Advertiser, 23 April 1910.

  3. East London Observer, 20 May 1893.

  4. East London Observer, 1 June 1901. Reid would also state erroneously that the Ripper never took away any parts of his victim’s body.

  5. East London Observer, 14 May 1910.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1. Saturday Post, 29 January 1916.

  2. The Times, 15 December 1898.

  3. Dinnie would later become Chief Commissioner of the New Zealand police. He was the brother of the famous Highland Games athlete Donald Dinnie, and had been something of a sportsman himself in his youth before joining the police. Froest had worked on the Whitechapel murders as a sergeant, and later worked with Dew on the Crippen case.

  4. The Times, 5 January 1899.

  5. The Times, 15 December 1898.

  6. Lloyd’s Weekly News, 25 December 1898.

  7. Illustrated Police News, 7 January 1899.

  8. The Times, 22 December 1898.

  9. The Times, 5 January 1899.

  10. Ibid.

  11. The Times, 30 November 1898.

  12. Ibid.

  13. The Times, 5 January 1899.

  14. Lloyd’s Weekly News, 8 December 1898.

  15. The Times, 15 December 1898.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Illustrated Police News, 7 January 1899.

  18. Lloyd’s Weekly News, 25 December 1898.

  19. Illustrated Police News, 7 January 1899.

  20. The Times, 19 January 1899.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1. The Times, 2 November 1906.

  2. All information from PRO CRIM 10/99, unless otherwise stated. For the purpose of simplification Clifford/Harms/Friedlauski is referred to throughout as Conrad Harms.