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| ISBN-13: | 9780752482118 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 01/31/2012 |
| Series: | Murder & Crime |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 12 Years |
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Murder and Crime: Birmingham
By Vanessa Morgan
The History Press
Copyright © 2012 Vanessa MorganAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-8211-8
CHAPTER 1
Case One
'Destruction to the present government'
1791
Suspects: Francis Field and John
Green Age: Unknown
Charge: Rioting
Sentence: Execution
In the summer of 1791 Birmingham was described as a place 'where all the wealthy and principle inhabitants were dissenters'. They were said to be poisoning the minds of the lower classes with wild ideas of abolishing the Crown and establishing the 'Rights of Man'. One of these men was Joseph Priestley, a minister of the New Unitarian Meeting House and a strong supporter of the French Revolution. He preached, it was said, 'with the spirit of animated republicanism'.
On 11 June 1791, an announcement appeared in the local newspaper inviting like-minded people to a dinner at the Dadley & Co. Hotel in Temple Row, to celebrate the second anniversary of the storming of the Bastille: 'Any Friend to Freedom disposed to join the intended temperate festivity is desired to leave his name at the bar of the Hotel, where tickets may be had at five shillings each.'
Handbills were distributed saying, 'My Countrymen: the second year of the Gallic Liberty is nearly expired; at the commencement of the third, on the 14th of this month, it is devoutly to be wished that every enemy to civil and religious despotism, would give his sanction to the majestic common cause, by public celebration of the anniversary.' It went on to remind the populace of the enthusiasm aroused when the Bastille, 'that high altar and castle of despotism', fell, and to describe Parliament as 'venal', ministers as 'hypocritical', the clergy as 'legal oppressors' and the Crown as 'too weighty for the head that wears it'.
Questions were raised as to whether the bill was a forgery or if it was a scheme to raise a mob for the purpose of plunder. Unfortunately, it proved to be the latter. As the eighty-one guests arrived at 3 p.m. on that Thursday afternoon, they were greeted by a small crowd of protestors. At first these protestors were peaceful, merely jeering and booing at the diners, but then through the windows they heard the first toast – 'destruction to the present government and the King's head upon a charger.' The crowd rushed into the hotel, breaking windows, furniture and glasses, and throwing stones at the guests as they made their escape. The damage amounted to £144 11s 11d.
From the hotel, a group made their way to Priestley's meeting house, where they tore down the pulpit, made a bonfire of the contents and then set fire to the building. Another group went to his house at Fair Hill, two miles away, and set fire to it. They also made an effigy of him which they hung up and burned. Ironically, despite fervently preaching against the luxuries of life and the use of strong liquor, which he said was vulgar, his cellar was found to be filled with wine. The rioters helped themselves and became intoxicated.
As word spread, more people joined the rioters. At seven o'clock that evening they held a meeting behind the Swan Inn to choose dwelling houses and meeting houses for destruction. Meanwhile, the magistrates Joseph Charles and Dr Spencer swore in as many constables as they could, and soldiers from the Oxford Blues were ordered to march to Birmingham.
The riots continued through Friday and Saturday but by Sunday morning the town was said to be quiet, apart from twenty men lying drunk on the green. However, as soon as the morning services ended, the riots began again. By Sunday evening the damage amounted to £250,000, and, with no business having been transacted since Thursday, an estimated loss of about £3,000 revenue.
John Ryland's house at Easy Hill was burnt down because his son had helped Priestley to escape. Mr Humphrey's house at the turnpike was pulled down. He had offered the mob 8,000 guineas to spare it, but the rioters said money wasn't their object. Dr Withring was the first surgeon in Birmingham, but he was a dissenter, so wasn't spared. His house was pulled down on Sunday evening.
Other principal houses demolished or set on fire were – the Old and New Meeting Houses in Birmingham, Revd Coult's and Mr Ryland's at Five Ways, Moseley Hall in Bordesely (the property of John Taylor the co-founder of the bank Taylor Lloyds, now Lloyds TSB), Mr Hobson's in Balsall Heath, Mr Russell's in Shovel Green, Mr Hanwood's in King's Heath and in nearby Moseley, Mr Hawkes Jnr's, Mr Budd's and Mr Harwood's.
The rioters were very organised in the ways they attacked the buildings: If a house was detached, it would be set on fire; if semi-detached, the doors and windows were broken and the furniture taken out into the street, piled up and set alight. While doing all this they continually chanted 'God Save the King', 'Long Live the King, Church and State,' or 'Down with Dissenters'.
Where the house belonged to a dissenter but the inhabitant was an Anglican, notice was given for him to remove his contents and, if needed, help was given before the house was destroyed. John Taylor was with his family in Cheltenham at the time of the riots, but Lady Carhampton, the mother of the Duchess of Cumberland, was residing at his Birmingham property. Assistance was given and her goods removed and she was taken in by Sir Robert Lawley. The rioters then helped themselves to Mr Taylor's liquor and in no time the mansion house was in flames.
In an effort to put an end to the destruction, a bill was distributed reminding the rioters that the cost of the repairs would be charged to the respective parishes and would be paid out of the rates. This would bring extra taxation which the rioters, and others in the years to come, would feel. But still the riots continued.
Reports said that Joseph Priestley had escaped to Kidderminster but it seemed that the rioters would not stop until all the dissenters had left Birmingham. It was the arrival of re-enforcements from Nottingham which finally dispersed the mob. Elliot's Light Horse regiment left Nottingham at eight o'clock on Sunday morning and arrived in Birmingham at ten o'clock that night. They were said to be covered in dust and much fatigued. A magistrate read the Riot Act, while the troops rested at the Swan Inn for the night.
By the morning the rioters had left for Worcestershire, and, although the soldiers followed, they had scattered.
Over the coming weeks there was a lot of debate as to who was to blame for the riots, how they took hold so quickly and why they took so long to quell. The dissenters felt the government hadn't done enough. As a token gesture, a few arrests of known rioters were made and these men appeared at the Warwick Assizes on Tuesday, 23 August 1791.
Francis Field of Aston was charged with burning John Taylor's house and was found guilty. Three witnesses, Edward Cotterill, Samuel Healey and John Brookes, said they had seen Field start the fire. He was seen at nine o'clock at night walking up the gravel path and entering the house. He went upstairs, where the floor was wooden, carrying flaming torches from the hall and then carried more to another room and then again to the first-floor landing. He fed the fires with paper hangings and furniture. John Green was charged with helping him and both were found guilty.
William Rice of Aston was charged with having 'assembled unlawfully to riot and disturb the public peace, and to demolish the dwelling house of William Hutton in Washwood Heath'. Two witnesses, George Rowell and George Mascall, said they had seen him there, but he called two other witnesses who could prove he was elsewhere and so he was acquitted.
Robert Whitehead of Aston was charged in regards to William Hutton's house. Witnesses said they saw him knocking the windows out with bludgeons and committing other acts of violence. But another witness said that Robert was actually a friend of Hutton's and when Hutton's picture of Garrick as King Lear was thrown from the window Robert rescued it – he was found not guilty.
The court was seen as being so lenient on the rioters that the phrase 'nothing but a Birmingham jury can save you' came into common parlance. Of course, this isn't strictly true as the assizes took place in Warwick.
In the end, only three rioters were sentenced to death – Francis Field, Bartholomew Fisher and John Green. They were said to have acted penitently and acknowledged their crimes, though claimed that they would not have become involved had it not been for the seditious handbill that had been published. On the day before his execution Bartholomew Fisher received a pardon. The other two were not so lucky and kept their appointment with the hangman.
CHAPTER 2Case Two
The Walls were Stained with Blood
1828
Suspect: Edward Roach
Age: Unknown
Charge: Murder
Sentence: Committed suicide to escape justice
The first half of the nineteenth century saw a large influx of people into Birmingham from the surrounding area, looking for work in this now growing industrial town. These people needed homes and so many back-to-back courts were constructed. These houses were inexpensive to build and quickly spread across the town. They were also cheap to live in, but accommodation was basic in the extreme. There were only two or three rooms in each house, with thin walls separating the individual families and shared toilet and washing facilities. Over-crowding was a common problem, but the difficult and cramped conditions often meant that friendly, close-knit communities developed.
Edward Roach, a whip maker, and his wife, Mary, lived in one of these courts at the back of 17 Ellis Street, Birmingham with their three children. Edward and Mary had been married about eight years and had lived in Ellis Street for about four months. Everyone who knew him said Edward had seemed a man of good character and that they had only seen him intoxicated three times.
But recently Edward had renewed an intimacy with a female residing in Exeter Row. He had been attracted to her before his marriage but, at the time, she had only been sixteen years old. Naturally, Mary was jealous and had taken to quarrelling with him over it.
On 15 October 1828 Elizabeth Pearson, whose house in Court No. 3 adjoined the Roach's building, heard cries of 'Murder!' and the children screaming. The next morning she asked Mary what had happened and Mary showed her marks on her neck, which looked as if someone had tried to strangle her. She also had a black eye.
On Saturday, 29 November 1828, Edward was at work as usual and approached a fellow workman, William Mansell, and asked him to sharpen his knife. He said he wanted it done straight away because he needed it to work with. William obliged and although previously Edward had always left his knife in the shop, on this particular day he took it home with him.
The next evening, neighbours heard loud quarrelling between Edward and Mary. Henry Hawkins, a malster who lived at No. 17 and described the walls between the two homes as being quite thin, heard Mary call out, 'Oh my dear husband, don't!' several times. He also heard her scream 'Murder!' and then a noise as if both had fallen down the stairs.
He rushed round and could hear Mary trying to get out of the house. He knocked and called for them to open the door, but no one replied. Then he heard Edward going up the stairs. Other neighbours now arrived and Mary could be heard groaning on the other side of the door, but no one could open it and so they sent for the nightwatchman.
John Price, the watchman, was on his rounds and was checking that the new canal office had been locked up properly, when a boy rushed up saying that a murder had been committed at the back of Ellis Street. When he arrived at the house he found what he described as 'a great number of people round the door, which was closely fastened'. After failing to open the door, he removed the grating to get in through the cellar door. By now another nightwatchman who had been patrolling Exeter Street had arrived and followed Price inside.
There was no light in the house but by the light of his lantern John Price found Mary Roach. He was so horror-struck that he screamed out. She was laying on her back behind the front door and was surrounded by a dark pool of blood. Her face had been slashed in many places, her neck perforated and her arm was only hanging on by a piece of skin. On the kitchen table lay a knife dripping with blood. It was eighteen inches long, with a thirteen-inch blade and two-and-a-half-inches wide. This was the knife Edward had asked William Mansell to sharpen for him.
By now William Baldwin, the night constable, had arrived and John Price opened a window for him to get in. Then they heard a gunshot upstairs. Going up, they found the bedroom still filled with smoke from the gunshot. Edward Roach was lying on the bed, his head partly slumped over the headboard and blood oozing from a wound in his right temple. Some described him as having his brains scattered thickly over his shoulders. His three children were on the bed with him. The youngest, who was said to be about two years old, was lying by his arm. The other two, who were aged six and four, were sitting up and smiling but when everyone started coming into the room they began to cry.
The inquest was held in the Wellington Tavern, Exeter Row, before the coroner, Mr Whateley. Before the proceedings began the jury were taken to view the house and the bodies. Reporters went with them and the local newspaper gave graphic descriptions of the scene:
On entering the house the first thing we perceived was a pool of blood inside the front door, the walls were also stained with blood and the floor crimsoned with the same. The body of Mary Roach lay on a board on the floor; it had no covering but a slight chemise, which was literally dyed in her blood. Her face was also very much stained with gore. Her right arm lay partially extended and presented a horrible appearance it being almost cut in two at the elbow. Several wounds appeared on her head. On a table near the body a knife was found with which the deed was perpetrated. The deceased was below the middle size; aged about 27. On proceeding up stairs to the bedroom, we observed the stairs quite wet and even slippery with blood, the walls were also quite saturated. A pool of blood was at the threshold of the bedroom.
On the bedstead, which had little or no bed-clothes on it, the body of Edward Roach lay extended. He had his waistcoat, shirt, pantaloons and stockings on him. His head was hung over the headboard of the bed. Underneath it there was a quantity of blood, which had run in different directions along the boards. The jury having viewed the bodies, returned to the inquest.
A surgeon, Mr Covey, examined the bodies. He described his findings on Mary's body, saying that all the muscles and tendons in her forearm had been completely severed and two bones were also dislocated. There were four wounds on her head: one at the back which had penetrated the skull, a deep one over the right ear which was an inch long, and two small scalp wounds. There was also a large cut on her back between the shoulder blade and the spine. She was two months' pregnant. Death was through extensive loss of blood.
He stated that the right side of Edward's face was completely shattered by the gunshot and that death would have been instantaneous.
Edward was buried late at night on the following Wednesday in St Bartholomew's burial ground, as was the custom with suicides. Mary's body was returned to her relatives and was buried at St Mary's, Whittal Street, on 6 December.
What happened to the children following this tragedy is uncertain but, according to reports, they were 'left unprotected by their father's dreadful crime'. The youngest child, Matilda, seems to have been taken in at an address in Bromsgrove Street and was baptised at St Philip's on 1 January 1829. Her parents are given as Edward and Mary Roach, a whip maker, but no mention is made of them being deceased. She and Maria appear on the 1841 census as servants – Maria at Brook Street and Matilda at Harborne Road, Edgbaston. Matilda married Thomas Maden at All Saints' on 7 February 1853 and at some point went to live in London, as in 1871 she is a widow in Marylebone. It is known that her father was born in London of Irish parents, so perhaps she found some relatives there. The eldest son, Edward, completely disappears.
CHAPTER 3Case Three
'That devil Davenport is my greatest enemy'
1838
Suspect: William Devey
Age: Twenty-eight
Charge: Murder
Sentence: Execution
'On Wednesday evening the neighbourhood of Snow Hill and Little Hampton Street was thrown into a state of great excitement by the perpetration of a most determined murder.' So reported the Birmingham Journal in April 1838.
Twenty-eight-year-old William Devey was a spoon-maker and lived almost opposite Joseph Davenport, the licensed victualler at the Pheasant Inn. They had, according to all accounts, been on friendly terms until Davenport appeared as a witness in a case brought against William Devey by a Mr Rowley, for 'seducing a hired servant from his employment'. Davenport appeared as a witness for Rowley and when Devey lost and was ordered to pay damages of 40s, he blamed Davenport for it. A 'distress' was then levied on Devey's premises by the Gas Light Company and William was again convinced it was Joseph Davenport's fault.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Murder and Crime: Birmingham by Vanessa Morgan. Copyright © 2012 Vanessa Morgan. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title,Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
Case One 'Destruction to the present government', 1791,
Case Two The Walls were Stained with Blood, 1828,
Case Three 'That devil Davenport is my greatest enemy', 1838,
Case Four 'Where you, go I will go', 1838,
Case Five 'Where are the police?', 1839,
Case Six Tied up in a Sack, 1839,
Case Seven 'If I am to hang I shall die innocent', 1840,
Case Eight 'A young man of respectable appearance', 1844,
Case Nine 'Oh Frank, what have you done?', 1860,
Case Ten 'Oh my wench I wish I hadn't done it', 1861,
Case Eleven 'Will you come back to Sutton now?', 1861,
Case Twelve 'I shook hands and kissed her', 1863,
Case Thirteen 'I loved her intensely', 1864,
Case Fourteen 'He smelt very strongly of creosote', 1868,
Case Fifteen 'It's me who chived him, see feel the knife, it's wet', 1875,
Case Sixteen 'I've just thrown old Paget's daughter in the canal', 1879,
Case Seventeen 'Her head was battered in', 1888,
Case Eighteen The Daring Street Robbery in Birmingham, 1891,
Case Nineteen 'I was there but I don't know what I did', 1893,
Case Twenty The Murder of Quaint Mary, 1898,
Case Twenty-one 'I will kill him before the night is out!', 1912,
Case Twenty-two 'I have given you the opportunity', 1912,
Copyright,