There Must Be Evil

by Bernard Taylor

  While she waited in her cell at Walton Gaol, not yet knowing when her trial would begin, she was in constant communication with her solicitor, Joseph Whitaker, who continued to work, unflagging, on her behalf. And Mr Whitaker had a problem. The opening of the inquest on the death of Mary Ann Finley at Castleton had brought further demands on his time and efforts, and he was becoming increasingly concerned over the matter of his fees. He had received some payment from Mrs Berry, but the money was going at an alarming rate. He had represented her from the first day of the inquest into Edith Annie’s death, through the petty sessions before the magistrates, and now – though he was not allowed to speak of it to her – he was attending the inquest in Castleton on her behalf. Also, instructed by Mrs Berry, he had in turn instructed counsel for her defence, in the shape of James Cottingham. In addition, the trial was soon to open, at which Mr Cottingham was to be aided by a junior barrister. The costs were mounting.

  On his expressing his concerns to Mrs Berry it was agreed that, in the event that she should be unable to meet all his costs, she would turn over to him certain of her possessions, to sell or dispose of as he thought fit. To this end, Mr Whitaker’s clerk, George Robinson, travelled to Walton Gaol, where, with Robinson witnessing her signature, Mrs Berry wrote an authorization for Mr Whitaker to take full control of her effects then held at the Oldham workhouse. Addressed to the Clerk of the Guardians of the workhouse, it read:

  I authorize you to hand to Mr Joseph Whitaker Solicitor Oldham 3 pictures and clothes and all other articles and effects belonging to me.

  Elizabeth Berry

  Witness: Geo. H. Robinson

  Feb 16th 1887

  She also arranged for Mr Whitaker to be given her watch. On receiving the document, Mr Whitaker put it in his file, to be ready in the event that it was needed.

  Elizabeth Berry’s trial at the Liverpool Winter Assizes was eventually set to open on 21 February. On that Monday morning, in her cell, she sat waiting for the warders to come for her. While held in the prison she had been kept in ignorance of what was going on in the outside world. Although the inquest’s proceedings in Castleton had been widely reported, the rules of the prison denied the prisoner access to all newspapers and also forbade visitors imparting any verbal information on outside events. As things were, however, Mrs Berry’s ignorance of any revelations coming from the inquest into her mother’s death was probably a good thing for her. She already had quite enough on her plate, and all her thoughts that morning would have been on the ordeal before her and the ensuing verdict on the charge of murdering her daughter.

  When at last the time for her departure was due, the officers came for her, and she was escorted across the city to St George’s Hall wherein the courtroom was crowded.

  Presided over by Mr Justice Hawkins, the trial was the final one in the calendar for the Winter Assizes and scheduled to last for four days. Appearing for the prosecution was Mr William M’Connell, Q.C., a much respected member of the Liverpool Bar, and for the prisoner Mr James Cottingham again, assisted by Mr Henry Byrne. Also among those gathered was coroner Mr Molesworth, who was presently conducting the inquest into Mrs Finley’s death; Mr Hesketh Booth, Clerk to the Oldham Magistrates; the Guardians of the Board of the Oldham workhouse and numerous other Oldham officials and workhouse residents. Among the spectators was Dr John Kershaw – he who had written to the Chronicle so scathingly of Dr Patterson’s methods and behaviour.

  Although not all would be heard, twenty-seven witnesses had been called for the prosecution and about nine for the defence. A number of the Oldham witnesses were pauper inmates from the workhouse. Not required to wear the workhouse uniform for their trip to Liverpool, they were allowed their own, personal clothing. Like most of the other witnesses they would be housed in hotels for the duration of their stay.

  The principal figures involved in the trial knew well that its outcome was anybody’s guess. The guilt and innocence of the prisoner had already been twice tested – and with directly opposing verdicts. The trial would now offer a third hearing of the evidence, after which the jury would decide whether the prisoner was to live or die.

  At the solicitors’ table Mr Cottingham was very conscious of the task before him. He had done his work well before the magistrates, but the situation now was very different. Since the magistrates’ hearing there had been the opening of the inquest into the death of Elizabeth Berry’s mother, with evidence which, it could not be denied, reflected disastrously on his client. For just as he himself had read all the newspaper accounts of the sensational proceedings, so he knew that every single member of the jury there in the Liverpool courthouse would also have read them. As a result, when they came to decide on their verdict they would have before them not only the evidence in the Edith Annie Berry poisoning case, but the knowledge that the prisoner was also under the deepest suspicion of having poisoned her mother.

  At about ten past eleven Mr Justice Hawkins took his seat, and three minutes later Elizabeth Berry’s name was called. She stepped into the dock with a light step, dressed as she had been at Oldham, in her mourning dress, neat little hat, and long black gloves with white cuffs. She stood erect while the charge was read, and in a firm, somewhat loud tone answered, ‘Not guilty.’ Mr Cottingham had a hurried, low-voiced consultation with her while the jury was being sworn in, and then as he returned to his seat a chair was placed for her, behind which stood one of the female warders.

  When at last everyone was in place, Mr M’Connell opened the case for the Crown. The prisoner, he said to the jury, was charged with having caused the death of her child, a female of the age of eleven years and eight months, who had met her death by poisoning. And if the doctors’ conclusions were correct, then the question was: Who was it who had administered the poison? It was the view of the prosecution, he said, that it was the prisoner who had done so.

  Giving an account of the antecedents of the dead child, he said that since 1881 she had lived with her aunt and uncle at Miles Platting until last 29 December when the prisoner had brought her to the workhouse. The prisoner, in her work as a nurse, had access to the surgery, and although many of the poisonous drugs were locked up, still there were many articles open in the room which, if misused, would be destructive of life. On the morning of 1 January a woman named Ann Dillon saw the deceased in the surgery with the prisoner. This visit was fixed in the fact that the dinner bill she received that morning was in the prisoner’s handwriting. Shortly afterwards the child became ill, and on Tuesday, the 4th, she died. The doctors were of the opinion that the girl had been given poison. A complete examination of the body had been made, but no traces of any poison were found. It was the doctors’ belief, however, that the poison had been carried away with the vomit and the purging. Mr M’Connell finished his address saying that he would produce witnesses who would prove the case for the prosecution.

  Elizabeth Berry, artist’s impression. It is reported that an artist from the press drew Mrs Berry’s likeness as she sat in the dock. Perhaps this is his work, showing her neat little hat and her fashionable frizette.

  The first witness was Alexander Banks, an architect from Oldham, who produced a plan of the workhouse showing the surgery and its relation to the prisoner’s sitting room. Copies of the plans were handed out to the jury. Banks was followed by William Lawson, Master of the workhouse, who, handed a piece of paper, identified it as one of the diet sheets that Mrs Berry prepared each day, which was in her handwriting, and which had been completed on the morning of Saturday 1 January, shortly before Edith Annie had been taken ill.

  Ann Sanderson, the dead girl’s aunt, was then called. In her examination by Mr Mellor she sometimes spoke in such a low voice that once or twice she was asked to speak up. She told the court that Edith, a ‘very lively child’, had lived with her and her husband for some years. After Edith’s departure for Oldham she had received a letter from her. She produced the letter, and the judge, remarking that it would help ‘to complete the his
tory of the case’, read it out to the jury.

  Written on Friday 31 December, the letter began, ‘Dear auntie and uncle,’ and went on to tell of the girls arriving safely at the workhouse, and of the Christmas decorations. It wrote also of their seeing the workhouse children ‘get their prizes’ and of having gone to see the Misses Johnson from Blackpool, swimming, and describing their feats under water. ‘It is very frosty indeed since we came,’ the letter said. ‘Mamma was dressed splendidly for the ball last night. Beatrice and I are enjoying ourselves very much.’

  Mrs Sanderson said the letter arrived on the Saturday, and on Monday she received a telegram. The telegram was here given to the judge, who said that it had been handed in at Rochdale Road Post Office, Oldham on Monday 3 January at 8.37. Addressed to Mrs Sanderson, it said: ‘Come at once Annie is dying. E. Berry, Oldham Union.’

  ‘I received it a little before ten,’ Mrs Sanderson said, ‘and we set off at once to Oldham and got there a little before twelve o’clock. My husband was with me. Mrs Berry was in the bedroom with Annie, who was in bed. I said to Annie, “Are you poorly, Annie?” She recognized me and she said, “Yes.” Then she said to me, “I’ve bought you a brooch, Auntie. You’ll find it in Mamma’s sitting room on the mantelpiece.”’ Here Mrs Sanderson’s frail composure deserted her and she began to weep. ‘I found the brooch there,’ she sobbed.

  When she was calmer, she spoke confirming her earlier testimony that Edith had never suffered from constipation, and as for her passing blood when given pills to counteract it, she had never been given pills of any kind. Questioned on Edith’s last hours, she said that at about nine that evening she and Mrs Berry went down to Mrs Berry’s sitting room to have some supper, leaving Ellen Thompson with the child. When they returned, Thompson left the room. About twelve o’clock Mrs Berry got undressed and lay down at the child’s side, where she fell asleep. Then about one o’clock the child gave two loud shrieks, at which Mrs Berry woke up, saying that a change had taken place. She then got off the bed and got dressed again. Mrs Sanderson went on to say that she herself stayed at the child’s bedside until her death at five o’clock in the morning, but that the child’s mother left the room at four, saying that she couldn’t bear to see the lass go.

  Mr Cottingham, cross-examining, was of course anxious to avoid his client being seen in an unsympathetic light, and said to the witness, ‘You tell us that Mrs Berry left the room before her daughter died. But the child had been low for many hours before this. Is that not correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is it not a fact that Mrs Berry had hardly been to bed at all during the whole of the time the child was ill?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is it not true that the doctor on his last visit had ordered her to take some rest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mr Cottingham, set on establishing that weak bowels had affected other members of the Berry family, said to her, ‘Now, regarding the prisoner’s husband, Thomas Berry, your late brother – can you tell us how he died?’

  ‘He had a weak inside – weak bowels,’ Mrs Sanderson replied, and added that she saw him ‘sometimes confined to bed for a day or so’.

  ‘And before he died was he very much emaciated? Very thin?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Edith was not the only child of the marriage, was she?’ said Mr Cottingham.

  ‘No. There were two other children. One, a baby, who died at four months.’

  ‘What was the cause of death, do you know?’

  ‘I believe it was from teething.’

  ‘And there was a third child, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, a boy. He died in 1882.’

  ‘What did he die of?’

  ‘I believe it was from an infection of the head and lungs.’

  Mr Cottingham wasn’t accepting this, and asked her, ‘Did you hear tubercular disease mentioned as the cause of death?’

  ‘No.’

  Mr Cottingham held up a piece of paper in front of the witness. ‘Then how,’ he asked, ‘can you account for it getting on this paper?’*

  At this, the judge, not happy with Mr Cottingham’s approach in this instance, was quickly moved to remark: ‘Mr Cottingham, this is very irregular.’

  Mr Cottingham may have softened his tone but he continued on the same tack. ‘I understand,’ he said to the witness, ‘that on one occasion when the deceased and the boy came home from Blackpool they were both suffering from sickness and vomiting. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t see ’em vomit, but they told me they did before they got home. Dr Shaw came to see them.’

  Having done his best to establish that both the child’s father and brother had suffered from weak bowels, Mr Cottingham asked the witness whether she had ever given her any medication. She replied that she gave her Gregory’s powder every few months. ‘Not because her bowels were irregular, but because her stomach was out of order. She didn’t eat very well.’

  ‘Did she ever complain of pain in the stomach?’

  ‘No.’

  After Mrs Sanderson had stepped down, the court was adjourned for luncheon. When proceedings were resumed, Edith’s friend Beatrice Hall was called.

  She told the court that at the workhouse she and Edith played together and had their meals together. On Thursday they went out and bought chocolate and coconut chips and biscuits, and on Friday some fish at the market. ‘It was finnan haddock,’ she said, and they all three – she, Edith and Mrs Berry – had it for tea.

  Continuing, she said that on Saturday morning she and Edith got up about nine o’clock, at which time Edith seemed very well. When they were dressed they went down to Mrs Berry’s sitting room for breakfast. ‘I ate my breakfast about ten o’clock,’ she said. ‘Edith didn’t have any breakfast because she was sick. After Edith was sick Mrs Berry gave her a powder, and afterwards took her to a closet which was down the corridor. They were gone just for a few minutes.’ She went on to say that the doctor came and afterwards Edith was taken up to Mrs Berry’s bedroom where she, the witness, stayed with her the whole of the afternoon. That night, she said, a bed was made up for her down in Mrs Berry’s bedroom. However, on her telling Edith that she was ‘feared’ to sleep there alone, Edith slapped the pillow at her side and said, ‘Come and sleep here, then.’ Beatrice then slept that night in the bed along with Edith and Mrs Berry. ‘Edith didn’t seem to be any worse in the morning,’ she said. ‘I asked her if she was any better, and she said she was.’ About half-past eight she left her friend to go downstairs and have breakfast and returned to her side about 9.30. She was there when Dr Patterson came about twelve o’clock, and remained there after he had gone until half-past twelve, when she went down to have her dinner, leaving Mrs Berry alone with Edith. She returned to the bedroom about half-past one. There were no marks on Edith’s lips then. Questioned further, she said that she stayed with Edith till about four o’clock, reading to her, then went off to have her tea. ‘I didn’t sleep with Edith that night,’ she said. ‘They made a bed up for me again in Mrs Berry’s sitting room but I was afraid to stay there on my own.’ She slept with the nurse Sarah Anderson that night, she added, and went home on Monday morning.

  The nursing assistant Ann Dillon went into the witness box next. She spoke of Edith as a ‘very merry little girl’, and said that at a quarter to ten on the morning of 1 January she went into the surgery and found the child there with Mrs Berry. ‘I went into the surgery to get the diet note,’ she said, ‘as it was my duty to do every day.’

  Here Mr Mellor said to the judge: ‘Your Lordship has the diet note?’

  The Judge: ‘Yes.’

  The note in question was here passed to the witness, Dillon, who was asked if she recognized the handwriting on it. She said it was the handwriting of the prisoner, and that it was written on the day that she went into the surgery. Continuing, she said she had no conversation with Mrs Berry, except that she told her how many inmates were having li
berty that day. It was at that, she said, that Edith said to her, “Ann, are you having liberty today?” and I said, “No, love, not today; it’s not my day.”’ Going to Mrs Berry’s sitting room about three quarters of an hour later, she said, she found Edith vomiting. ‘Mrs Berry was holding a tumbler with something white in it, like magnesia or cream of tartar. As soon as I went in, Mrs Berry said to me, “This girl is sick,” and then said to Edith, “Drink this, darling, it’ll do you good.”’

  “Did the child drink it?” Mr M’Connell asked, and Dillon replied, ‘No. She said, “Oh, I can’t, Mamma.”’ The next time she saw the deceased was in the prisoner’s bedroom that night. She was being sick into a bowl, which she, Dillon, emptied away. ‘Edith kept rubbing her stomach and saying, “Oh, my belly.”’

  Dillon then told the court that she was asked by the Chief Constable to keep a watch on the prisoner. Asked as to any observations she had made, she said that on 11 January, the Tuesday following the child’s death, she was in Mrs Berry’s bedroom when Mrs Berry began walking up and down, crying. ‘I asked her what was the matter, and she said she was crying over it being said that her child had been poisoned. She was saying, “Oh, dear! They think my child has been poisoned.” I said to her, “Do you think she’s been poisoned?” and she said, “They say so.” I asked her: “Have you given her anything in mistake?” and she said, “No, I never gave her anything, only a seidlitz powder – which you saw me give her.” She was in great distress.’ Asked whether Mrs Berry knew that the police had instructed her, Dillon, to watch her, Dillon replied that Mrs Berry did know it. ‘I didn’t tell her so,’ she said. ‘I told her that I would keep her company. She learned that I was watching her from Mr Purser and Mr Lawson.’

  The final witness of the day was inmate Ellen Thompson, who testified to seeing Edith on the Saturday, about noon in the prisoner’s sitting room, vomiting. While she was there Alice Alcroft came in and wiped up vomit from the carpet. ‘I dried the carpet afterwards with a towel. Mrs Berry ordered me to.’ She was also ordered to empty and wash out a pail into which the child had vomited. ‘When I came back from emptying the pail I found that Edith had vomited into a chamber pot, and this Mrs Berry also told me to take away. About two in the afternoon Mrs Berry ordered me to carry Edith upstairs to the bedroom. I did so, and I put her to bed. I went back up to the bedroom about eleven o’clock that night with Ann Dillon, and the child appeared to be much better. I saw her again on Sunday afternoon, and noticed a small white blister on her upper lip. I could see it plainly and I said something to Mrs Berry about the child having a cold. She said to me, “No, I don’t think it’s that – I think it’s an orange she’s had with some sugar.”’ Continuing, she told how on returning to the bedroom at five-fifteen she saw that the child was very poorly, ‘worse than in the morning’. ‘She continually moved her head about as she lay there, as if she was in great pain. Mrs Berry asked me to go to the lodge and ask Dr Patterson to come. I took the message, and I next returned to the bedroom after the doctor had been. Mrs Berry said that the doctor was going to call for another physician, and she said she knew the meaning of that. I said, “What is the meaning of that?” and she said, “Well, the child is so weak to begin with, I know she won’t recover.” After the doctors had gone I sat up with the child along with Mrs Berry. There was a bottle of medicine that Dr Patterson had left and I asked Mrs Berry if she was going to give Edith some, but she said she didn’t want to punish her. I said, “The doctor will be angry if he finds you haven’t given her any of the medicine,” and she said that she would pour some of it away and tell the doctor that Edith had taken it.’ During the night, she went on, the child complained of pains in her stomach and was sick several times. ‘Mrs Berry gave her an injection as well as some medicine. She gave it in a teaspoon, but it ran out of the side of her mouth. I saw Edith again the next day, Monday, at a quarter to ten at night. Mrs Sanderson was with her. I didn’t see her alive again.’