There Must Be Evil

by Bernard Taylor

  The crime of which [Elizabeth Berry] has been convicted is one of the most terrible that can be conceived. According to the evidence, she administered a deadly poison to her child and calmly and dispassionately stood by her bedside for hours while she felt all the agonies of the most cruel and lingering death. Here was the mother, actuated with the worst passions of brutality, determined at all hazard to get rid of her child, and to be free from any encumbrance, and on the other side was the confiding and innocent girl, who had come full of life and joy to the Workhouse, to spend the holiday with the only person in the world upon whom she could look with the deepest esteem and pleasure. The motive for the crime has not been made very clear at the trial at Liverpool. The deceased girl was insured for £10, and the accused was entitled to that amount in the event of death. The deceased also cost her mother about £13 a year for maintenance, but as she was eleven years of age, there was a possibility that she would soon be able to labour in some vocation, and thus partly, if not completely, relieve her mother of any responsibility as regards expenditure. Probably there is some motive for the crime which has not yet been revealed.

  There can be no doubt that the verdict found against Elizabeth Berry was the correct one. For all Mr Cottingham’s brilliance and passion, he had found scarcely anything to put forward in the way of her defence. Mrs Berry could not, herself, speak out. It was not until the Criminal Evidence Act of 1898 that defendants would be given the opportunity to speak in their defence. One wonders, though, what she could possibly have said to rebut the charge against her, and of her behaviour in the business.

  True, while Edith Annie was lying ill her mother had called in other nurses in the workhouse to come to the sick child – this in spite of the fact that the girl was already being tended by Dr Patterson – but this was done to give the impression that the anxious mother was doing all she could. She no doubt believed that such actions would be construed in her favour – giving a picture of a desperate mother who would stop at nothing in her efforts to save her child. Such ‘efforts’, though, come over as transparently bogus, while the cold cruelty behind them is almost inconceivable.

  The evidence against her, although circumstantial, was damning. Witness her many lies. As to the cause of the child’s illness, she said that the night before being taken ill Edith had eaten a heavy supper of cheese and apple pie. It is common knowledge that eating cooked cheese before bedtime might well have a negative impact on digestion, and this was what she hoped would help to explain her daughter’s illness. Alice Alcroft, however, made it clear that the meal had consisted of beef, potatoes and apple pie. Witness also how Mrs Berry lied when trying to account for the blisters on the child’s lips. She had given the girl an orange with some sugar, she said, and in support of this even had Beatrice Hall go down to the kitchen the following day for an orange. Later, having decided that the acidity of an orange might not be seen as sufficient to cause harm, she changed her story, saying that she had given the girl some lemon.

  What went through Mrs Berry’s mind on being found guilty of her daughter’s murder we shall never know. She was, of course, desperately hoping to be cleared of the charge, as she had been by the magistrates, but hearing the judge’s summing up, she must have feared the worst.

  What, though, in the event that the jury had acquitted her? Did she believe that she would then be set at liberty? If so she was much mistaken. A verdict of not guilty at the Assizes would not have seen the end of her troubles, and her most perilous predicament was alluded to in the Chronicle immediately following her trial’s conclusion. In an article drawing attention to the fact that the inquest into her mother’s death at Castleton was yet to be completed, it said:

  Had the jury at Liverpool not found the prisoner guilty she would have been arrested at the Assizes on suspicion of poisoning her mother. An officer was in waiting at the Assize Court with a warrant for her re-apprehension.

  Quite unaware of what was being written and spoken about her in the world outside the walls of the gaol, Elizabeth Berry, now in the condemned cell, was putting her mind to some of the practicalities associated with her bleak position. And in this regard she sent word to the prison governor asking him to write to Mr Whitaker’s clerk, George Robinson, with a request that he be allowed to attend her at the prison at the earliest opportunity. She wished, she told the governor, to speak urgently to the clerk about arranging her affairs.

  Twenty-seven-year-old Altrincham-born George Henry Robinson was the son of an Oldham schoolmaster. Employed as Mr Whitaker’s clerk from his early twenties, he had been involved with Mrs Berry’s case from the day of her arrest and had had much communication with her ever since. He had visited her frequently when she had been confined in Oldham, and afterwards, with her removal to Walton Gaol.

  Acceding to the condemned prisoner’s request, the governor wrote at once to Mr Robinson. In the meantime, Robinson’s employer, Mr Whitaker, was given permission to call on his client on the day following her conviction. Arriving at the prison and conducted to her cell, he met her in the presence of her warders. In the course of the meeting Mrs Berry urged him to petition the authorities with a view to having her sentence commuted, to which he replied that he already had the matter in hand.

  It is likely that when they parted he left her encouraged in the hope that all was not lost. Though notwithstanding any words of hope he may have given her, he was well aware that, just three days hence, the inquest into the death of her mother was to be resumed, and that its outcome could have the most profound effect on any plea for mercy that he or anyone else might make on her behalf.

  The day after Mr Whitaker’s visit to the prison, his clerk, George Robinson, having received the governor’s letter just that morning, made his way to Walton to see Mrs Berry. On the way he must surely have wondered how he would find her in her most desperate plight. With the press now giving their attention to her in her new position of condemned woman, there had appeared in the papers various reports on her mental and physical state. Going by some accounts, she had fallen into the deepest despair, the Chronicle reporting that ‘…she broke down immediately on being sentenced, and continued to sink lower by the hour’.

  Whatever George Robinson might have read about her condition, he was to witness the change in her at first hand.

  On his arrival at the prison at eleven o’clock he was conducted to the female wing and there to a spacious room intersected with slate partitions arranged to form two compartments. Within each compartment was a counter and an aperture looking through a screen of wire netting into the other part of the room. Taking a seat at the counter in one of the compartments, he waited, and after several minutes heard sounds of the unlocking of doors and the clanking of keys. He then saw the prisoner appear, escorted by two female warders.

  In spite of what he had read in the papers, he was in no way prepared for the dynamic change in Mrs Berry since last seeing her in the courtroom. Gone were the elegant clothes that she had worn in the dock, the black silk dress, the gloves, the little hat perched behind the teased fringe of her dark hair. She was dressed now in the prison garb of a blue serge dress with white collar, and with her hair with its fashionable frizette now covered by a white cap. It was not just the sight of her in prison clothes that shocked him, though, but also the change in her physical appearance. Her once rather ruddy colour seemed now to have quite gone. Pale and very weary, she looked, he thought, like a dying woman.

  But the wretched convict’s appearance was not to be the only shock he received in those early moments of his visit. As she drew nearer to him she had only time to say, ‘Good morning,’ to him, and then to his horror fainted and fell heavily, striking the back of her head on the flags. While she lay unconscious, tended by one of the warders, the other dashed off, returning soon afterwards with two of the gaol’s doctors and the matron.

  Peering through the grill, George Robinson watched as the doctors bent over her, trying to revive her. She remained senseless, howe
ver, and soon the warders were lifting her prostrate form and carrying her away out of sight. Facing the empty room again, Robinson remained in his chair, not knowing what to do, only waiting and hoping that she would soon recover and be able to see him. It was not to be. He was still sitting there some two hours later when an officer came and advised him to leave, suggesting that he return that evening, at which time, it was hoped, the prisoner would have recovered.

  Taking the advice, Robinson left the prison. When he returned at seven o’clock he was told that Mrs Berry had remained unconscious for more than three hours. At one point the doctors had thought that she might actually expire, and in their treatment had given her an injection and opened a vein. To his relief, however, he was informed that she was now well enough to see him.

  Taking his seat in the dimly-lit visitors’ room as before, he again waited, peering through the coarse wire grille into the other part of the room. After a while the door facing him was unlocked and opened and Mrs Berry appeared once more, again attended by two female warders. Seeing him, she at once came forward.

  The Chronicle, reporting on Robinson’s meeting with the convict, remarked of the warders, and their duties:

  …They watch over her night and day. She is watched so closely that if she desired she could not by any possibility hasten her fixed end. She is not even allowed to touch a pin except in the presence of one of the wardresses. No, the prisoner does not receive any of those attentions which, when at Oldham, helped to make her confinement more bearable. There is, for instance, no policeman going out on the very feminine errand of borrowing a pair of curling tongs for her use, as was the case when she was at Oldham.

  Now, as Mrs Berry came forward, Robinson saw again the great change in her, noting her weary manner, her step no longer light and sprightly as he had seen it in the past.

  Reaching the partition she put her hand through the grating and shook hands with him. She then sat down, and they began to converse. As they talked she spoke of her trial, remarking bitterly that the summing up of the judge had been harsh, and then complained also of one of the witnesses – though she would give no name. As for the verdict, she said it had not come as a surprise, and went on to say that she was expecting no reprieve and was quite prepared to meet the penalty given out. She was, she said, now diverting her attention from all worldly affairs, and simply preparing to meet her Judge. She did not want any visitors, but wished to prepare for her fate in solitude. As Robinson sat listening to her sorrowful voice he began to think that she might voice some confession to her crime. It was not to be. At no time during their meeting did she make any reference to her guilt.

  It was some minutes into their melancholy conversation when Mrs Berry turned to the purpose of her request for his visit, which was the disposal of her belongings. These, it appeared, were some items of furniture that were kept at the home of the Sandersons at Miles Platting, and certain other effects which were being held at the Oldham workhouse. These latter, her personal belongings, were made up of clothes, pictures, photographs, books, pieces of jewellery and various other items, which were, she told him, along with her furniture, all that she now possessed in the world. She had no money at all now, she said. At the start of her trial she had had almost £50 in the bank, but all of it had gone to pay Mr Whitaker for his services.

  Notwithstanding that she had already given authorization for Joseph Whitaker to be granted possession of her effects, she now commenced to give George Robinson directions as to how her goods should be disposed of, naming certain beneficiaries and the articles they should be given. And clearly she found the business a very emotional one, for several times Robinson had to pause in his note-taking as she gave way to bitter weeping. With her elbow resting on the small counter, she put her face down into her palm and sobbed, while he, not unmoved, could only murmur sympathetic words and wait for her to recover some composure.

  It must have made a dramatic and melancholy scene. The only light in the room came from a single candle that was kept on the prisoner’s side of the grille and which she sometimes took up and held in her hand. And all the while as the drama was played out the two wardresses stood by, grim and silent, observing all, while at the same time the single male warder broke the quiet with his measured footfalls as he paced to and fro in the passage that linked the two halves of the room.

  At last, nearing the end of her instructions to the clerk, Mrs Berry came to the main item. It was her wish, she said, that certain of her effects be sold in order to pay for a stone which she wished to have erected on her daughter’s grave.

  With that the painful interview was over, and Mr Robinson, with a promise soon to return for her final instructions, took his leave.

  As he walked away he turned and looked back, and saw her still sitting there by the pale light of the candle, watching his departure.

  19

  The Inquest at Castleton Concludes

  While George Robinson went about his business, Elizabeth Berry herself could do nothing but try to accept the enormity of her situation. And her situation was even bleaker than she was aware. While she languished in her cell, counting the days and praying that the Home Secretary would eventually be moved to grant her a reprieve, the men of the press were eagerly looking forward to the coming Monday where, in Castleton, the inquest into the death of her mother was to be resumed.

  The Chronicle reported that ‘although it may appear incredible, we are informed that [Mrs Berry] knows nothing whatever of the exhumation of her mother, and of the inquest held upon Mrs Finley’s body’.

  In the event that Mrs Berry did indeed know nothing of the matter – though it would have been in the prison authorities’ interests to deny that she did – she would most certainly learn about it in time.

  Before her trial at Liverpool the inquest into the death of her mother had, not surprisingly, opened to the greatest fascination. And following its adjournment Mrs Berry had been found guilty of a most diabolical murder, ensuring that when the inquest was resumed it would get the closest attention. If Elizabeth Berry could poison her own innocent child, then what else was she capable of? The public would soon find out.

  The inquest into Mrs Finley’s death was resumed at two o’clock on Monday 28 February, and when the jurors were in place the first witness was called. He was Mr George Shaw of Cobden Road, Chesterfield, employed as Clerk to the Guardians of the Poor for the Chesterfield Union Workhouse.

  His testimony told the remarkable story of Elizabeth Berry’s brief employment at the workhouse the previous year when, having commenced her duties as nurse on 1 February, she abruptly left at 11.30 the next morning, giving her reason for leaving as the condition of her mother who, she said, was seriously ill. He went on to say that he received a letter from her on 5 February, sent from Castleton, Rochdale, in which she wrote: ‘Sir, – My mother is sinking very fast, so that it will be impossible for me to leave her. Will you please present the enclosed to your board at their next meeting.’ The ‘enclosed’ was a letter tendering her resignation. Dated February 3rd, 1886, it said, ‘Herewith I resign my office as nurse in your Workhouse. Owing to my mother’s dangerous state of health it is impossible for me to leave her. Yours truly, Elizabeth Berry.’

  Dr Frank Paul, Lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence at the University College, Liverpool, was called next to testify, and said that he had made analysis of the body parts delivered to him following the post-mortem on Mrs Finley’s body. He had found no mineral poison present, but he had extracted a substance from the stomach and intestines which he believed to be atropia, a substance extracted from the deadly nightshade. It was impossible to say how much atropia there was in the body, as it was a drug that would disappear in the course of time. ‘A very small quantity would be fatal,’ he said. Asked as to the effect of it on the system, he said that the most marked symptom was dilation of the pupils of the eyes. ‘You have perhaps been to a chemist’s,’ he said, ‘and had something dropped into your eyes. That would be atro
pia. It doesn’t act on the system the same way as an irritant, like a mineral poison; it acts on the nerves, and causes death through the nervous system.’

  Dr Paul’s place was taken by Dr William Sharples, who was in practice at Castleton. After telling the court that he had assisted in the post-mortem of Mrs Finley, he said that he had attended her early in the previous year when she had suffered from bleeding of the nose. She had recovered from this by the end of January, but he was called to see her on 6 February by her daughter, Mrs Berry. Mrs Finley complained to him of sleeplessness, he said, for which he gave her sedatives, and attended her from time to time up to the 12th, the day before her death. She had some symptoms of paralysis on that day, and also complained of thirst. On the subject of the patient’s death, he said, ‘When I left her on the Friday night I thought she was rather seriously ill, but I didn’t expect her immediate death. But the next morning, Saturday, Mrs Berry came and told me that the woman was dead, that she had had several convulsive attacks during the night, and that she died in a convulsion.’ He added that after discussion with Mrs Berry he gave her a certificate saying that death was due to cerebral haemorrhage and coma. ‘I gave the certificate from what Mrs Berry told me,’ he said, ‘and from what I saw of the deceased during her illness. I was considerably puzzled about the case, but I thought that that was, to the best of my judgement, the cause of death.’ He went on to say that while attending Mrs Finley he noticed the pupils of her eyes several times, and on the last day of her illness saw that they were largely dilated and unequal. He said also that at one time he saw her in a kind of convulsion or fit, which he regarded as a symptom of brain disorder. ‘Her face was flushed, the pulse quick and irregular, and she had some tremulous motion of the muscles all over her.’ He hadn’t noticed the condition of her pupils at the time, he said. ‘It was impossible to examine them. When I tried to examine her eyes she pushed me away. The next time I saw her after this she exhibited symptoms of paralysis. And she looked as if she had had too much spirits. She was excited, and had the appearance of a person intoxicated.’