Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in London's West End

by Geoffrey Howse

  It has been the misfortune of several English gentlemen to die at this place, in the time of the late usurpation, upon the most honourable occasion that ever presented itself; yet none of these, as I could ever learn, received so many marks of your esteem as myself. How much the greater, therefore is my obligation.

  It does not, however, grieve me that your intercession for me proved ineffectual; for now I shall die with a healthful body, and, I hope, a prepared mind. My confessor has shown me the evil of my ways, and wrought in me a true repentance. Whereas, had you prevailed for my life, I must in gratitude have devoted it to your service, which would certainly have made it very short; for had you been sound, I should have died of a consumption; if otherwise, of a pox.

  Duval Court, 36 Bedfordbury, built opposite where Claude Duval was apprehended. The author

  Duval was given a fine funeral at St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden and according to popular legend, was buried in the chancel and a white marble stone laid over the site of his tomb. It bore his family’s arms, under which was engraved this epitaph:

  Here lies Duval: reader, if male thou art,

  Look to thy purse: if female, to thy heart.

  Much havoc hath he made of both: for all

  Men he made stand, and women he made fall.

  The Second Conqueror of the Norman race,

  Knights to his arms did yield, and ladies to his face.

  Old Tyburn’s glory, England’s bravest thief:

  Duval, the ladies’ joy: Duval, the ladies’ grief.

  Like other monuments to those who were buried within St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden during the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth century, that of Claude Duval was probably destroyed in the fire that wreaked havoc in the church in 1795, or perhaps, because it was supposedly in the chancel, it has been tiled over during renovations and repairs. I have read one account that intimates Duval’s body was exhumed and possibly taken to France for reburial. This assertion, as far as I have been able to ascertain is unsubstantiated and whether it is based on fact or is simply yet another fanciful story within the intricate web of legends associated with this enigmatic highwayman, I have been unable to establish. To this day there is still a reminder of Duval, very close to where he was arrested and quite close to the church where, as far as most people with a passing interest are concerned, believe he still lies buried. At 36 Bedfordbury stands a block of flats named Duval Court.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Burning of Catherine Hayes 1726

  … instead of the expected splash there was a thud, as the water was shallow and the head and bucket had landed in mud.

  Catherine Hayes was born Catherine Hall of poor parents, in Birmingham in 1690. In 1705, when Catherine was fifteen, she met some army officers, who took to the attractive young girl and persuaded her to join them in their quarters. Never one for letting an opportunity pass by her, Catherine took them at their word, and, for a while, became their collective mistress, until they moved on. From being little more than a kept whore, Catherine became maid to a Warwickshire Farmer, named Hayes. The farmer had a son named John, who was a carpenter. He fell in love with his father’s attractive, young maid and before long, twenty-one-year-old John Hayes had stolen away to Worcester and secretly married Miss Catherine Hall. Once Catherine had hooked her man, her true nature began to surface, she became argumentative and most disagreeable to her in-laws. After six years of marriage, she was growing bored with life in the country and she persuaded her husband to move to London.

  Catherine Hayes. Author’s collection

  John Hayes came of an industrious family and he adopted their principles. In London he thrived in business, becoming a successful coal-merchant, pawnbroker and moneylender. He traded from premises in Tyburn Road (today’s Oxford Street). In a little over ten years, he had made enough money to enable him to sell his shop and take lodgings nearby.

  This evil, scheming harridan of a wife made her industrious husband’s life miserable and once boasted to neighbours that she would think it no more sin to murder him than to kill a dog. She said that her husband was miserly and mean, which if it were true, was at odds with her own desire for luxury.

  At the beginning of 1725 a young man named Thomas Billings called at the Hayes’s lodgings. He was a tailor by trade and Catherine told her husband he was an old friend and John Hayes allowed Billings to stay with them. When John Hayes ventured out of London on business, his wife took Billings into her bed. While the husband was away, the lovers took advantage of his absence by throwing parties and being frivolous with money. When John Hayes returned, he gave his wife a beating. Billings remained in residence apparently blameless of any indiscretions in the eyes of his unsuspecting host.

  Not long after John Hayes returned to London, another young ‘friend’ of Catherine’s turned up on the doorstep. His name was Thomas Wood. Wood also shared Catherine’s favours whenever the opportunity allowed. She cajoled Wood into believing that her husband was an evil man and by offering him a share in her husband’s estate, should she become a widow, which amounted to the then very large sum of fifteen hundred pounds, persuaded him to agree to help her kill him. Catherine had at the very least a fertile imagination. She told Wood that her husband was an atheist and that he had killed their two children and buried them under fruit trees. It was not long before an opportunity to dispose of John Hayes presented itself.

  After being out of London for a little while, Thomas Wood returned on 1 March 1725. When he called at the Hayes’s lodgings, he found John and Catherine Hayes in high spirits with Thomas Billings, indulging in a drinking session. Wood joined in with the party and a challenge was issued by the boastful Mr Wood that he could consume more wine than Hayes and still remain sober. He had already consumed six bottles. Wood said if he won the bet then Hayes should pay for the wine. Hayes agreed. Leaving Hayes at these lodgings, Catherine, Billings and Wood went to the Brawn’s Head in Bond Street, where they drank a pint of ‘best mountain wine’ between them, and a further six pints were taken back to their lodgings. While his wife, Billings and Wood drank beer, Hayes downed the six bottles of wine, apparently with little difficulty. However, Catherine had sent out for more wine and as Hayes drank his seventh bottle, he collapsed on the floor. A few minutes passed before he came round and staggered into the adjacent bedroom. Shortly afterwards Billings went into the room and finding Hayes face down on the bed, dealt him a violent blow with a coal hatchet (one of the tools used during Hayes’s time as a coal merchant. Several such hatchets were found in the house), which fractured his skull, as Hayes stirred he was dealt two more blows which finished him off. The noise of the blows, delivered with such violence that they could be heard on the floor above, brought a neighbour down to investigate. Mrs Springate, who lived in lodgings above those of the Hayes’s, came downstairs to complain about the noise. Catherine Hayes apologized and told her that her husband had invited some guests, who would be leaving shortly. Mrs Springate having returned to her own quarters, it was now necessary to dispose of the body as quickly and as quietly as possible.

  Catherine Hayes, Thomas Billings and Thomas Wood, dismembering the body of the murdered John Hayes. Author’s collection

  Notwithstanding the butchery that followed, the bedding was already drenched and the walls and ceiling of the bedchamber spattered with blood. Catherine apparently remained cool and calm. She suggested that in order to avoid identification, her husband’s head should be cut off and disposed of separately. This, her accomplices agreed to do. They resorted to sawing through the neck with a knife, as the sound of chopping at so late an hour might bring Mrs Springate upon them again. The head was placed over a bucket to catch the blood, while the neck was sawn through. The two men balked at the idea of Catherine’s to boil the head to remove the flesh. Despite their precautions to keep the noise to a minimum, Mrs Springate found herself, once again, obliged to call downstairs. She later said in evidence that Catherine told her that her husband had been ca
lled away suddenly and was getting ready to leave. While preparations were being made to dispose of the blood, which was poured down various sinks, Catherine put on a convincing performance calling out goodbye to her husband, in the hope she would be heard by the neighbours, which of course, she was.

  Wood and Billings took the severed head out of the house in a bucket concealed beneath Billings’s coat, while Catherine attempted to wash the bloodstains from the unvarnished floorboards. Despite washing them and scraping them with a knife, the stains were still visible. At risk of being stopped by the watch at so late an hour, as it was well after midnight, Billings and Wood made their way to Whitehall and arrived at the River Thames, where they discovered to their dismay that the tide was out. They dare not wade across the foreshore for fear of attracting attention, so they walked on past Westminster to Horseferry wharf (where the present Horseferry Road meets Lambeth Bridge). There they went to the end of the dock and threw the head in the river and the bucket after it. However, instead of the expected splash there was a thud, as the water was shallow and the head and bucket had landed in mud. A night watchman heard the sound as the head and bucket hit the river bed, and a lighterman on board a boat saw the bucket being thrown into the river, but as the night was dark it was only at daybreak that night watchman Robinson, saw the bucket and head floating near the shore, from where they were retrieved. Meanwhile, Billings and Wood had made their way back to Catherine, expecting the head to have floated away on the next tide. They discussed how to dispose of the body. Catherine had procured a wooden box but it was not large enough to take the body. They cut off the arms, then the legs at the knees but it still proved too large to fit in the box. They then hacked off the legs at the thighs and somehow managed to fit all the pieces into the box, which at nine o’clock that night they took out of the house wrapped in a blanket. They went north to Marylebone, where they took the remains of John Hayes’s body out of the box and put them in a blanket and threw the package into a pond, where it sunk.

  Meanwhile the severed head had been handed over to parish officers. It was washed to remove the blood and mud from the face and hair and the hair was combed. It was then attached to a pole and placed in the churchyard of St Margaret’s Westminster, adjacent to Westminster Abbey, for several days, in the hope that someone would recognize it. Eventually, an organ-builder named Bennet came forward to say the head resembled an acquaintance of his named John Hayes and a journeyman-tailor named Mr Patrick also recognized it. Patrick went to the Dog and Dial in Monmouth Street, where John and Catherine Hayes used to drink. Billings happened to be there and when it was pointed out to Patrick that he was the Hayes’s lodger, Billings said he had left Hayes in bed that morning.

  John Hayes’s head exhibited outside St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, in an attempt to identify it. Author’s collection

  During the next few days, when enquiries were made of Catherine as to the whereabouts of her husband, her inventive mind came up with the ridiculous story that he had killed a man and absconded. On being asked if the head was her husband’s victim, she replied that the body had been buried entire. On being questioned by different visitors to her lodgings, she told a different story to each. It was not long before suspicion fell on her. She moved lodgings and took Billings, Wood and Mrs Springate with her; and began collecting her husband’s debts. By this time the severed head was beginning to decompose, so it was placed in a jar of spirits to preserve it.

  The body parts were found in the pond in Marylebone and as Catherine received more and more visitors enquiring after her husband, the net closed in. As it had been established that Billings and Wood were with Hayes the last time he was seen alive, when a warrant was issued for the arrest of the murderers, their names were included on it. Catherine Hayes was arrested by Mr Justice Lambert in person, assisted by two officers of the Life Guards. Billings was taken at the same time, as he was in her bedchamber. Mr Justice Lambert asked Billings if he had been sleeping with Mrs Hayes, Billings said no, he was mending his stockings. The magistrate pointed out that he must have been doing it in the dark as there was neither fire nor candle. Mrs Springate was also arrested but was later released.

  When Catherine asked if she could see the head that had been displayed in St Margaret’s churchyard, Mr Justice Lambert went with her to the barber-surgeon, Mr Westbrook, who was looking after it. When Catherine was shown the head, she took the glass in which the head was preserved and called out:

  It is my dear husband’s head.

  Catherine’s performance knew no bounds. She shed tears as she embraced the container and the head having been lifted out of the spirit, she kissed it rapturously and begged to be given a lock of its hair. As the barber-surgeon remarked that she had already had enough of her husband’s blood, Catherine swooned away.

  Wood was arrested and on hearing that the body had been found in the pond, confessed his part in the crime. Catherine obstinately refused to admit her guilt. She was an object of curiosity in Newgate, where she told varying accounts of events to the many visitors she received. Eventually she admitted that she had wanted to get rid of her husband and had persuaded Billings and Wood to help her. At the trial she pleaded to be exempted from the penalty of petty treason on the grounds that she had not struck the fatal blow herself. However, her plea was disregarded and she was told the law must take its course. Thomas Billings and Thomas Wood were condemned to death by hanging and afterwards to be hung in chains. Catherine sent messages to her two lovers regretting that she had involved them. When she saw Billings in chapel she held his hand and showed other signs of affection.

  However, Wood was ailing fast in Newgate. He cheated the hangman and died of a fever, on 4 May, in the condemned cell.

  On 9 May 1726 Thomas Billings was hanged at Tyburn and later his body was suspended in chains a little over a hundred yards from the gallows and not far from the pond where John Hayes’s body had been disposed of. When the executioner, Richard Arnet, came to fetch Catherine, she asked him if he had killed her ‘dear child’ yet. This prompted speculation that he was Catherine’s son by a previous connection. Although the ages of Wood and Billings were not recorded, they were believed to have both been teenagers.

  At Tyburn, when Catherine had finished her devotions, in pursuance of her sentence an iron chain was put round her body, with which she was fixed to a stake near the gallows. Faggots were then placed around her and the executioner lit the fire. On these occasions, when women were burned for petty treason, it was customary to strangle them, by means of a rope round the neck and pulled by the executioner, so they were dead before the flames reached the body. But Catherine was literally burned alive, as Arnet let go of the rope sooner than usual, in consequence of the flames reaching his hands. The fire burned fiercely round her, and the spectators watched her pushing away the faggots, while she ‘rent the air with her cries and lamentations.’ Other faggots were instantly thrown on her; but she survived amidst the flames for a considerable time, and her body was not perfectly reduced to ashes until three hours later.

  The burning of Catherine Hayes at Tyburn, 9 May 1726. Author’s collection

  CHAPTER 6

  Murdered by a Poet 1727

  I am a dead man, and was stabbed cowardly.

  In December 1727, Richard Savage (1697–1743) English poet and satirist and intimate friend of Dr Samuel Johnson, found himself on trial for his life, charged with murder, following a quarrel in a West End coffee-house. Savage was the illegitimate son of the Countess of Macclesfield, the result of a love affair with Captain Richard Savage, afterwards Earl Rivers. He was born on or about 10 January 1697. The young Savage grew up having been shoved from pillar to post, being placed in the care of a series of families, but despite his unconventional upbringing, his literary talents emerged. At the age of eight he had been placed at the grammar school in St Albans. When Savage was fifteen he came across some papers which explained the mystery of his birth and the contrivances that had been carried
on to conceal his true origin. Lady Macclesfield had secured a divorce from her husband and married Lord Rivers. As their son grew up, his mother nurtured a deep hatred for him and many years later, only consented to settle an annuity of £50 on him after he had threatened to expose his parentage in his first volume of poems. Lord Rivers had died from an ‘ulcer in the guts’ at Bath in 1712.

  On the evening of Monday 20 November 1727, Savage was in the company of two friends, William Merchant and James Gregory. All three men were the worse for drink when they entered Robinson’s Coffee House, near Charing Cross. They forced their way into a room where a private party was just splitting up and began to quarrel with the departing guests. Merchant entered first and kicked over a table, whereupon angry words were exchanged and Savage and Gregory drew their swords. Savage was subject to fits of blind rage, particularly when drunk and on this occasion it seems he lost his head altogether. Mr Nuttal asked them to put them up, but they refused to do so. In the ensuing fight, Savage came up against James Sinclair, made several thrusts at his opponent and ran him through the belly. Sinclair fell, calling out as he did so:

  I am a dead man, and was stabbed cowardly.

  Someone put out the candles and in the darkness one of the maids received a cut to the head while trying to prevent Savage and Merchant fleeing the building. They did manage to escape but were quickly apprehended in a dark court nearby. Gregory was held in the coffee-house, where he was arrested. James Sinclair died the next morning but not before identifying Savage as his assailant. The deceased was attended by a clergyman and Sinclair told him he had been stabbed before he had time to draw his sword. Savage later said he had drawn his sword in self-defence. Savage, Merchant and Gregory were taken by soldiers and lodged in the roundhouse, and in the morning were carried before a magistrate who committed them to the Gatehouse, but following the death of James Sinclair, they were sent to Newgate. Arraigned before Sir Francis Page, notorious for his severity and commonly known as the ‘hanging judge’, their trial took place on Thursday 7 December, in the Old Bailey and lasted eight hours. In his summing-up, the judge instructed the jury that if the prisoners had acted without provocation, they were all three guilty of murder. He rejected the plea of hot blood and dismissed the character witness’s evidence as irrelevant.