There Must Be Evil

by Bernard Taylor

  On Mrs Berry’s arrival at the workhouse she met her legal advisers, after which, soon after two o’clock, she was led into the courtroom, taking a seat behind Mr Whitaker. The Chronicle’s reporter said ‘she looked little the worse for her change from the luxury of her workhouse apartments to the police cell, except that she appeared a little paler’. Her dress was the same as that worn by her the previous week, he said, ‘a handsome stamped black silk dolman, trimmed with fur’.

  One of the first witnesses was Sarah Anderson, forty, head nurse in the female imbecile ward. She had been called to see Edith on the Saturday between two and three in the afternoon, she said. ‘The child was in her mother’s room, on the sofa, and seemed to be very unwell. I saw her again next afternoon, Sunday, about a quarter to three. She appeared to be very ill – in fact much worse than on Saturday. I saw her again on Monday, just before eleven o’clock. I noticed a change then, and saw there were blisters on her lips.’ She hadn’t noticed any blisters or redness on the Saturday.

  The next witness was Lydia Evett, the nurse in the workhouse children’s hospital. She told the court she had seen Edith on the Sunday about a quarter to five in the afternoon in Mrs Berry’s bedroom. ‘Mrs Berry said to me, “See what the orange has done to Edith’s mouth,” and I said to her, “It’s very strange,” meaning it was strange that an orange should cause such marks.’ When she saw her again the next morning, she said, she ‘noticed that the red marks around her mouth had blistered’. She ended her deposition by saying that in Mrs Berry’s absence from the infirmary she, the witness, had been asked to take on her duties.

  Inmate Alice Alcroft came next to give evidence. Described in the Chronicle as an ‘old woman’, she told the court that she worked as ‘one of Mrs Berry’s servants’. In answer to questions she said that she saw the child Edith Berry on the Saturday morning, when she appeared to be in her usual health, and ‘again about twenty minutes later, when Mrs Berry told me to wipe up some vomit’. ‘The child vomited while I was there,’ she said. ‘Mrs Berry sent me to the surgery for some mineral powders. I brought the box of them. She sent me for a glass of water, too.’ Here the coroner asked her if she knew what the powders were for, and she replied, ‘I believe they’re used to make soda water with. They make fizzing drinks.’

  ‘Do you know the name of them? Can you remember what was written on the box?’

  ‘No, I don’t know – I can’t read.’

  Questioned about the children’s movements following their arrival at the workhouse, she said, ‘They went about where they liked. I remember their going out on Thursday and Friday. They came back with their pockets full of sweets – coconut chips and chocolate. They gave me one or two and wanted me to have more, but I said, “Get off! What does an old woman like me want sweets for?”’ There was laughter in the court at this, and when it had died away Mrs Alcroft added, ‘Edith was a spirited little thing, and her mother appeared very fond of her.’ At this observation Mrs Berry briefly covered her face with her hand. The witness then went on to say that she heard that Edith was ill when Mrs Berry called her to ‘wipe up in the room’. ‘That was about half-an-hour after I brought them their breakfasts.’

  Questioned by the coroner, she said, ‘Mrs Berry had her breakfast before the children came down for theirs. When the children came down they talked for a few minutes to some of the inmates in the corridor.’

  Mr Cottingham: ‘Did you give the children their breakfasts?’

  ‘Yes, and I took the tea in to them.’

  ‘You took the pot and the cups into Mrs Berry’s room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Had you your tea out of the same pot afterwards as you gave the children?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did you drink some of the tea?’

  ‘Yes. It did me no harm.’

  ‘Rather good, was it, I hope? Stronger and better than you would usually get?’

  ‘Yes.’

  This caused some amusement, during which Mrs Berry was seen to laugh also. In the quiet again, a juror asked the witness:

  ‘Had you ever seen the children in the surgery?’

  ‘Yes, I saw them in there once, washing their hands.’

  ‘Was the mother with them in the surgery at the time?’

  ‘I’ve never see Mrs Berry in the surgery.’

  Here the Chief Constable, not satisfied with the witness’s answer, spoke up, asking her: ‘Did you hear the question?’

  Mr Cottingham was having none of this, and he said at once, ‘I really must object to a constable of the police acting as an advocate. Any assistance he may give you I do not object to, but I do object to a constable of police interfering with a witness.’

  The coroner: ‘I hardly think he’s interfering with a witness.’

  With further exchanges between the witness and Mr Cottingham it was eventually made clear that the witness Alcroft had not seen either of the girls in the surgery with Mrs Berry on that Saturday morning. With this she was allowed to go, and her place was taken by the next witness.

  She was Mrs Mary Jane Knight, thirty-four, who told the court that she was an inmate of the workhouse and employed as a servant to Mrs Berry. She said that about 4.30 in the afternoon of Sunday 2 January, Beatrice Hall came for her to sit with the child Edith Berry, and that she stayed with her for about an hour. Asked by a juror whether the child had complained of anything having been given to her, she answered, ‘No.’ Questioned further, she said, ‘I stayed in the room with her until Mrs Berry came back in and told me to go and get my tea. I left Mrs Berry with her.’ She went on to say that the next day, Monday, she saw marks about the child’s mouth. She was sure they hadn’t been there on the Sunday. She then gave the interesting information that she was in the kitchen on Monday afternoon when Mrs Berry sent Beatrice Hall down for an orange.

  After the witness was dismissed, Beatrice Hall was recalled. Questioned, she said neither she nor Edith had gone into the surgery before breakfast on the Saturday.

  Philip Estcourt, next called, testified to receiving bottles of body parts from Dr Harris, and on 8 January delivering them to his father, Charles Estcourt, the city analyst. Charles Estcourt was the next witness. He told the court that he was a Fellow of the Institute of Chemists, the city analyst of Manchester, and analyst to the boroughs of Oldham, Ashton, Macclesfield, Lancaster, etc. He went on to say that having received the bottles from his son he washed the organs in distilled water and tested the evaporated residue for sulphuric acid. ‘I found only a faint trace,’ he said, ‘the presence of which might be due to natural causes.’ He then described how he had further tested the organs for signs of poisonous compounds, metallic or organic, but that none was found. He had found nothing to account for death in any way, he said.

  Following Mr Estcourt, Dr Patterson was recalled and, questioned by Mr Cottingham, said that when he first saw the child on the Sunday he prescribed a solution of bicarbonate of soda and creosote. ‘But there was no creosote in the bottle,’ he said. ‘I wanted two drops, but I couldn’t get one drop out of it, so I rinsed the bottle out to get a little. So what the child had from me was a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and the washings of a bottle which had contained creosote. That was about twelve o’clock in the day, and I sent an order to the chemist, Mr Goodall, to have the creosote bottle filled. I told Mrs Berry to mix it in a certain way – which I will tell you – ’

  Mr Cottingham broke in at this, protesting: ‘Oh, no! Not unless the coroner wants it.’

  Dr Patterson continued: ‘The creosote bottle is a 5oz. bottle. In the evening, after consultation with Dr Robertson, we agreed that the patient should have a mixture of bismuth and morphia, and that was made up in the surgery. That was at ten o’clock on Sunday night. I was going to use the creosote to stop the vomiting. I used bismuth afterwards in its place because the creosote hadn’t arrived.’

  Mr Cottingham: ‘What? You sent for it at twelve o’clock to Mr Goodall’s and it didn’t arrive by
ten o’clock that night? It hadn’t come in ten hours?’

  ‘No, it came in the morning.’

  ‘You said you substituted bismuth for creosote on Sunday night because the creosote hadn’t arrived?’

  ‘I changed from creosote as the patient was worse that Sunday night, and in great pain. The symptoms had changed for the worse. I had told Mrs Berry in the morning before leaving that when the creosote arrived she was to dissolve eight drops in a 12oz. bottle of water, and give the child a tablespoon every two hours.’

  The doctor was then asked whether he had told Mrs Berry while the child was alive that he was of the opinion that an irritant poison had been used. He said he hadn’t. It was on Monday when he became convinced that an irritant poison was the cause of the child’s sickness. ‘Dr Robertson agreed with me on every point of the post-mortem examination,’ he said, ‘and after the examination we were quite certain that the child didn’t die from natural causes.’ Questioned on the matter of the various bottles that were in the surgery, he said, ‘I have given the coroner a list of the bottles that were outside the locked-up cupboard. There were a few of them, on the counter on the left-hand side of the fireplace. They were habitually there, and I won’t undertake to say that they were not displaced on the Friday or Saturday.’

  On the subject of the child’s death certificate, he said he had given it ‘in order that the funeral arrangements might be made – and with the cognisance of the Chief Constable’.

  Mr Cottingham: ‘Do you know the cost of the funeral?’

  Patterson: ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Did Mrs Berry not tell you that it cost £15 or £18?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did she tell you that the child was insured?’

  ‘No, she said it was not insured. She said, “I’ll have to pay for everything out of my own pocket.” I told her not to go and spend a lot of money on the funeral,’ he added.

  Mr Cottingham: ‘While you thought she had poisoned her child you went on giving her friendly advice?’

  ‘That was friendly advice?’ said Dr Patterson.

  When the doctor had stepped down, Ann Sanderson, the child’s aunt, was recalled. Questioned by Mr Cottingham, she said she didn’t remember the child ever suffering from vomiting and had never known her to vomit blood. The coroner then asked her: ‘Did you ever tell Mrs Berry that when you gave Edith a pill she passed blood sometimes?’ Mrs Sanderson replied that she had never told her such a thing.

  The witness was released here, and the Chief Constable, Hodgkinson, was called. He told the court that on Tuesday 4 January, Dr Patterson came to his office and gave him a towel that was smeared with blood and which he, the witness, then sent to Mr Estcourt for analysis. He then went on to relate how, in the company of Inspector Purser, he visited Mrs Berry at the workhouse on the Thursday night, and was taken to see the child’s body. Mrs Berry told him, he said, that Mrs Sanderson had told her that the child was troubled with constipation, and that when given a pill she always passed blood. She said that when the child came to the workhouse a week ago she was not well, also that no one had given her any medicine but the doctor, ‘and that she wouldn’t take’.

  The Chief Constable’s next words caused something of a stir. ‘I took the cloth from the child’s face,’ he said, ‘and noticing that the mouth was very much broken out, I told her that the doctors suggested there had been foul play – that she had been poisoned. I asked her how she accounted for the eruptions around the mouth, and she said that before the child died her mouth was ulcerated, and she supposed that that was the cause. I said to her, “As a nurse, you must have seen many children after death,” and she said, “Yes.” I said, “Have you ever seen a mouth like that before?” and she said, “No.”’ He told her then that she was suspected of having poisoned her daughter at which ‘she became very excited, and turned to Mr Lawson and said, “Why should I have killed my darling when I had just doubled my insurance for her benefit in the Prudential.” I’ve made inquiries,’ Mr Hodgkinson said, ‘and I find that neither she nor the child were insured in the Prudential.’

  A juryman then asked whether he had received any report on the towel sent to Mr Estcourt. He replied that he had, and that there was nothing injurious on it. This was then confirmed by Mr Estcourt himself.

  Mr Cottingham then asked the Chief Constable, ‘Have you heard what was the expense of the funeral?’

  ‘£10, the Master of the Union tells me.’

  No further witnesses were called, and the coroner announced that as the inquiry had been twice adjourned he would read out the witnesses’ depositions. This he did, and then addressed the jury.

  They had heard all of the evidence in the case, he said, and had to consider the cause of the child’s death – which he thought had been proved conclusively to have been from the effects of a corrosive poison. They would then have to decide as to how and when the child came by that poison, whether she had taken it inadvertently or whether it had been wilfully administered, and then bring in a ‘proper verdict’. And, he said, they must decide purely on the evidence before them, by what he had read to them, and not by anything they had read in the papers. If they found that there was a strong suspicion created against a person or persons, then they must bring in a verdict of wilful murder against that person. He concluded his address, saying, ‘If, on the other hand, you consider that the evidence is not strong enough against any person or persons then your only course is to bring in an open verdict, to the effect that there is not sufficient evidence to show how the poison was administered.’ He then ordered that the room be cleared to allow the jury to talk the matter over among themselves.

  While the fifteen jurymen remained to deliberate, Mrs Berry, waiting in another room, appeared to be low in her spirits. But she was given a cup of tea, and as the time passed she seemed to grow a little easier in her manner. However, just before seven o’clock, when it was announced that the court had reopened, her face turned deathly pale and she said she did not wish to go back in to hear the jury’s verdict. The coroner, however, determined otherwise, and she was brought into the room.

  When all were assembled the coroner turned to the jury. ‘Mr Hanson,’ he said, ‘you are the foreman upon this jury. Have you agreed upon your verdict?’

  The foreman: ‘We have, Your Honour. We have agreed that the suspicions point to the death of the deceased having been caused by poison, administered by Elizabeth Berry; and in order that she may be tried at the Assizes, we are unanimous in returning a verdict of wilful murder against her.’*

  The coroner then ordered Mrs Berry to stand up, which she did, holding herself very erect. Having cautioned her, he asked her whether she had anything to say. She replied in a clear, calm tone, ‘I have not.’

  With this she was escorted from the room and conveyed back to her cell.

  It had been observed that throughout the investigation she had borne up well, but the events of the day, culminating in the damning verdict of guilty, proved too much for her, and just before entering the police cell she fainted. She was at once attended to by Mrs Warburton, wife of one of the sergeants, and recovered shortly afterwards. However, it was later reported, she ‘keenly feels her position’.

  *

  With regard to the coroner’s inquest having brought in a verdict of guilty against Mrs Berry, this could not happen today. In 1975, following the inquest into the death of Sandra Rivett, at which the jury brought in a verdict of guilty against Lord Lucan, a new bill was passed that banned a coroner’s court from naming a putative murderer.

  13

  The Magistrates’ Hearing

  Although 20 January saw the end of the inquest, just two days later Elizabeth Berry was due back in the police court to stand for judgement again – this time before the magistrates. However, as the inquest’s verdict of wilful murder against her was sufficient to ensure that she was sent for trial, it was argued that it was not now necessary for the magistrates to hear the rest of the cas
e. The matter was much discussed, but eventually it was decided that the hearing, having been opened, must go ahead. So it was that on Saturday 22 January Elizabeth Berry found herself once more in the Oldham Borough police court.

  The place was packed. The newspapers, local and national, had been giving great coverage to the case, and when Mrs Berry was escorted into the room everyone was eager to get a glimpse of her. However, if they had hoped to be able to study her for any length of time they were in for a disappointment, for the prosecutor, Mr Mellor, said he couldn’t yet proceed as he had only just received instructions to take charge of the case, and wouldn’t be ready for a week. At this the Chief Magistrate called an adjournment for a further six days, and the prisoner was taken back to her cell.

  It would appear that Mrs Berry’s incarceration was less disagreeable than it might have been. The Chronicle’s man said of her situation, ‘She has not had to complain of the want of any of those little luxuries and liberties which might make a prisoner’s confinement less irksome. She has, in fact, been a favoured prisoner, having been allowed to spend much of her time outside her cell, and in the comparatively commodious space which is provided at the Town Hall for the exercise of prisoners.’

  If the prisoner did indeed enjoy some degree of comfort in her incarceration, it would have been much diminished if she had known what was taking place outside. As she waited over those six days for the resumption of the hearing, a new development was gaining ground. Shocking and scandalous, it related to a different case entirely, but one that very much concerned the prisoner.

  Months before the death of the child Edith Annie, rumours had begun to circulate about that earlier episode in Mrs Berry’s past, namely the death of her mother. At first the rumours had got no further than local gossip, but with Mrs Berry being charged with her daughter’s murder the rumours had come to the surface. The death of Mrs Finley was now, in the light of the capital charge against the prisoner, being viewed with increasing suspicion – word of which would soon reach the ears of those in authority.