Murder & Crime Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title

  Introduction

  Case One

  Stand and Deliver!

  Case Two

  Dick Turpin

  Case Three

  The Thief-taker

  Case Four

  A Duel

  Case Five

  The Cricket Field

  Case Six

  Clowns and Robbers

  Case Seven

  The House of Blood

  Case Eight

  Who Killed Mr Templeman?

  Case Nine

  No. 39 Hilldrop Crescent

  Case Ten

  No. 63 Tollington Park

  Case Eleven

  No. 14 Bismarck Road

  Case Twelve

  The Godfather

  Case Thirteen

  Coronation Roses

  Notes and Sources

  Copyright

  Introduction

  This book attempts to illustrate the history of Islington between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries through famous cases of murder and crime. A lot has changed over those 300 years. When the Great Fire ravaged London in 1666, ‘the worshipful village of Islington’ was a popular tourist resort separated from the bustling City by open fields. Set upon a hill, it boasted fine views of St Paul’s and Westminster, clean air, clear water and fine beer. Its attractions included cricket, football, horse-riding, archery, falconry, wrestling and cockfighting. There were also theatrical events featuring clowns, contortionists, strongmen, cannibals, singers and comedians; and lip-smacking offerings of fresh local milk, cheese, custard pies and tea and cake. No wonder Henry VII, Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh and countless other ladies and gentlemen of the realm were said to favour it as a holiday destination. Samuel Pepys frequently wrote in his diaries of taking his wife and friends on a ‘grand tour’ of Islington by coach during the evenings, stopping off at the ‘Katharine Wheele’ and King’s Head pubs to gobble down custards and sink as many beers as he pleased. ‘And so, we to Islington, and there ate and drank and mighty merry’, he wrote in September 1666, ‘and so home singing, and after a letter or two at the office, to bed.’

  By the end of the nineteenh century Islington was embedded deep within London. Few green fields and open spaces remained as the land became covered with a network of streets, roads, crescents and avenues lined with houses from Angel northwards to Highbury, Finsbury Park, Holloway, Highgate and Crouch Hill. What was once a settlement of only around 300 houses became a crowded borough of more than 200,000 people.

  These changes were also reflected in the types of crime committed. In the seventeenh and eighteenth centuries the area was a popular haunt for highwaymen like Claude Duval and Dick Turpin. Robbers lurked in the fields looking for easy prey and pickpockets dipped their way through the crowds at pleasure resorts like Sadler’s Musick House and Islington Spa. By the early twentieth century it was the ideal setting for three of the most notorious murder cases in London’s history, featuring Dr Crippen, Frederick Seddon and the ‘Brides in the Bath’ killer George Joseph Smith. This was what George Orwell called ‘the Elizabethan period’ of English murders, featuring apparently respectable and professional men who felt driven to kill to maintain or advance their position in suburban society. The locations of these crimes are still remembered today.

  Case One

  Stand and Deliver

  1670

  Suspect:

  Claude Duval

  Age:

  27

  Charge:

  Highway Robbery

  Sentence:

  Execution

  London, 2 September 1666. A dark figure in a red silk cloak sits astride his horse at the crest of the hill at Angel Islington and looks down on the city below. It is as if he is gazing into the depths of Hell. Sheets of flame lick the heavens while clouds of smoke and ash billow monstrously from the vast conflagration. It is hard to believe that all this began as a small blaze at a bakery in Pudding Lane. The Great Fire is now spreading in all directions, south to the Thames, east to the Tower, north to the wall at Moorgate and west towards St Paul’s. It seems unstoppable.

  Most would hesitate before plunging down into the inferno, but the horseman on top of the hill is not afraid. For he is Claude Duval, the most famous highwayman in England, plunderer of men’s purses and women’s hearts. Earlier that day he had held up a coach carrying the son of the Lord Chief Justice Sir William Morton and his beautiful female companion in Finchley Common. ‘Stand and Deliver!’ he cried, thrusting two long pistols at his prey, his dark eyes glistening from behind his black mask, his white teeth shining ominously in the moonlight. His reward was bountiful – £400 secreted in a box under the seat. But when the lady offered her diamond necklace, Duval gracefully declined and asked only for a dance. After completing a short courante, he proffered her his ring before vanishing into the night.

  The lady who had so enchanted him is now in danger from the raging inferno. Duval races down the hill to Moorfields to rescue her and her mother and then escorts her to the safety of their family home at Highgate. Once there he swoops in for a passionate kiss before revealing his true identity. ‘My only prospects are death,’ he tells her. ‘I am a cheap felon, a thief, an outlaw.’

  That is just one of the many stories told about the highwayman who prowled the approaches to London. It comes from Edwin T. Woodhall’s book Claude Duval, Gentleman Highwayman and Knight of the Road, a fictionalised version of the few facts known about this enthralling figure of history. Almost all that is known about him is found in an anonymous pamphlet printed in 1670, ‘The Memoirs of Monsieur Du Vall’. It states that Du Vall was born in Normandy in 1643 and came to England after the Restoration as a servant of ‘a person of quality’. He turned to highway robbery mainly to maintain his drinking habit. Although there is no mention of his crimes taking place in Islington, locals honoured him by changing the stretch of road from Lower Holloway to Crouch End from Devil’s Lane to Duval’s Lane. Perhaps this is proof enough that the ‘Knight of the Road’ once plied the highway now known as Hornsey Road.

  The famous ‘courante’ with one of his lady victims also appears to have some grounding in fact. According to the memoirs, Duval held up a coach carrying an unnamed knight, his lady, a serving maid and a booty of £400. ‘The lady, to shew she was not afraid, takes a flageolet [a wooden flute-type instrument] out of her pocket and plays: Du Vall takes the hint, plays also, and excellently well, upon a flageolet of his own.’ Her dancing skills so impressed him that he decided to take only £100 of the £400 available. In this short episode he demonstrated all the qualities that sent English ladies into a swoon:

  He manifested his agility of body, by lightly dismounting off his horse, and with ease and freedom getting up again, when he took his leave; his excellent deportment, by his incomparable dancing, and his graceful manner of taking the hundred pounds; his generosity, in taking no more; his wit and eloquence, and readiness at Repartees, in the whole discourse with the Knight and Lady, the greatest part of which I have been forced to omit.

  The scene was immortalised by the painter William Powell Frith in 1860.

  Yet Duval could also be ruthless. There is an account of him robbing a coach in Blackheath, ‘rudely’ confiscating their jewellery and even snatching a silver suckling bottle from the mouth of a baby. If he was renowned for his courtesy, it was politeness backed up with a loaded pistol. Duval was finally caught by the authorities at the age of twenty-seven. While awaiting execution it is said that ‘there were a great company of ladies, and those not of the meanest degree, that visited him in Prison, interceded for his pardon, and accompanied him to the gallows’. The legend has it that after his execution at Tyburn on 21 Janu
ary 1670, his body was cut down from the gallows and laid ‘in state’ at the Tangier tavern in St Giles, before being buried ‘in the middle isle in Covent-Garden Church, under a plain white marble stone, whereon are curiously engraved the Du Vall’s arms, and, under them, written in black, this epitaph’ [sic]:

  Claude Duval depicted in a drawing dancing with one of his victims, after the famous painting by William Powell Frith in 1860. (Courtesy of Victorian Picture Library)

  Here lies Du Vall: Reader, if Male thou art,

  Look to thy Purse; if Female, to thy Heart.

  Much havoc has 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 illustrious Thief,

  Du Vall, the Ladies’ Joy; Du Vall, the Ladies’ Grief.

  Modern retellings of the Duval legend suggest he was buried at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden. But this is yet another London myth that was probably started by Walter Thornbury in his Old and New London. St Paul’s confirm that there is no record of his burial there and certainly no grave marker. Edwin Woodhall’s fictional account suggests that it was St Giles’ Church, but if this is true no trace remains, as it was rebuilt in the early eighteenth century. It is thought the most likely explanation is that Duval was buried unromantically in a pauper’s grave at Tyburn. Often truth is duller than fiction.

  Many other highwaymen, now long forgotten, plied their trade on the ‘Great North Road’ from the city to the provinces via the villages of Islington and Highgate. Few lived up to the example of the gallant rogue Duval, not least because they were often too poor to afford horses and prowled the area by foot. At the Old Bailey in 1675 five such ‘footpads’ were condemned to death for their crimes. ‘Their usual practice was to lurk in the Evening, or very early in the Morning, about Islington, and other skirts of the Town,’ it was recorded, ‘and force what single Passenger they could meet with to surrender their Purses, and sometimes with sudden violence took Contribution of Hats and Cloaks, one of them had the good luck to meet with a Booty of Thirty and odd pounds, though now he is likely to pay dear enough for the Purchase.’ In another case from 1692 a gang of seven or eight highwaymen stopped the coach of John Lacey Esq. ‘a little beyond Islington’ as he made his way to Tottenham High Cross with his wife and maid. Their reward was a gold watch, a pair of diamond pendants and fine clothing worth more than £80. Only one suspect was convicted and condemned to death, a soldier from Islington called John Neale.

  At a time when there was no police force worthy of the name, it is likely that only a very small proportion of highway robbers were ever prosecuted. However, the cases that did go to court reveal some of the methods used to combat them. In 1683 a group of Islington residents were notified that two suspects were en route from Highgate and so they lay in wait. The trap was successful, but only after one of the locals was shot dead during the pursuit. It was also not unknown for the victims to fight back, sometimes with surprising success. In 1715 a traveller passing through Holloway managed to fight off two armed robbers using a stick in one hand and a knife in the other. One of the attackers died of his injuries and the second was let off with a fine of £50, possibly because he had already been punished with a stab wound to the belly.

  Case Two

  Dick Turpin

  1739

  Suspect:

  Dick Turpin

  Age:

  34

  Charge:

  Horse Stealing

  Sentence:

  Execution

  The most famous highwayman of them all arrived in Islington on Sunday 22 May 1737. Dick Turpin quickly wreaked havoc among the coaches and carriages on the roads around Holloway and Highgate, depriving one travelling gentleman after another of their money. At midday, according to newspaper reports, he ventured down Back Lane (now Liverpool Road) and held up two men in a chaise. One of them dared to suggest to Turpin that he had reigned long enough and would soon be captured. To which Turpin replied, ‘’Tis no matter for that, I am not afraid of being taken by you, therefore don’t stand hesitating, but give me the Cole.’ With that he seized a purse of guineas and rode off.

  Turpin was by then the most wanted man in England. For the previous two years he had been rampaging through the counties surrounding London – Essex, Middlesex, Surrey and Kent – robbing, housebreaking and stealing whatever he could find. Turpin seems to have started out by stealing bullocks in Plaistow in 1733 at the age of twenty-eight, before joining smugglers near Canvey Island. He then fell in with ‘Gregory’s gang’ in Essex, at first helping them to dispose of stolen deer and later with burglaries and raids around Epping Forest, Chingford, Woodford and Barking. They became so notorious that the authorities offered £50 a head for their capture. ‘Richard Turpin’, the notice read:

  A butcher by trade, is a tall fresh coloured man, very much marked with the small pox, about twenty-six years of age, about five feet nine inches high, lived some time ago in Whitechapel and did lately lodge somewhere about Millbank, Westminster, wears a blue grey coat and a light natural wig.

  After several members were captured and the ringleader Samuel Gregory was executed at Tyburn in June 1735, Turpin embarked on highway robbery. His favourite hunting grounds are said to have been Epping Forest, Finchley Common, Hounslow Heath, Hampstead Heath and Enfield, but he was not afraid to try his hand south of the river near Kingston, Putney, Wandsworth, Barnes and Blackheath. Hackney and Islington became more popular targets in late 1736 and early 1737, possibly because they were close to his safe house, the Red Lion tavern, near Hatton Garden, whose landlord is said to have been one of the most notorious fences in London. One story is that Turpin stopped a man near Hackney and demanded his money, only for the victim to reveal that he was poor and only carrying 18d. Turpin and his gang gave him half a crown and set off for richer pickings in Islington. On the way they held up a gentleman and stole his gold repeater pistol before returning to the Red Lion. By March 1737 he was known as ‘the famous Turpin, who rides with an open gold lace hat’.

  On 4 May that year, two weeks before turning up in Islington Back Lane, he or one of his accomplices shot a man dead in Epping Forest. A proclamation was issued stating that:

  Whereas it has been represented to the King that Richard Turpin on Wednesday the Fourth of May last did barbarously murder Thomas Morris, servant to Henry Thompson, one of the Keepers of Epping Forest … his Majesty for better discovering and bringing the said Richard Turpin to justice is pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to any one of the accomplices of the said Richard Turpin who shall discover him so that he may be apprehended and convicted.

  The reward was £200. Turpin was this time described as being: ‘about five feet nine inches high, of a brown complexion very much marked with the small pox. His cheek bones broad. His face thinner towards the bottom. His visage short. Pretty upright and broad about the shoulders.’ With a heavy price on his head, he left London and headed north.

  Dick Turpin’s ride to York upon his faithful steed Black Bess is the most famous of all his exploits. It is also fiction. In 1834 William Harrison Ainsworth published Rookwood, a historical romance that cast Turpin as a romantic hero. It was so successful that the story of Turpin’s twenty-four-hour ride to York became meshed together with the true story of his life. In Rookwood, Turpin fled his pursuers from Kilburn up Shoot-Up Hill Lane (now Edgware Road) towards Hampstead, then crossed to Highgate and then on to Hornsey and Duval’s Lane in Crouch End. ‘The men of Hornsey rushed into the road to seize the fugitive, and women held up their babes to catch a glimpse of the flying cavalcade,’ wrote Ainsworth. Turpin evaded the chasing pack by leaping the high turnpike gate, and galloped on through Tottenham, Edmonton, Enfield and up through Huntingdon, Grantham and Bawtry. Just as he caught sight of the towers and pinnacles of York for the first time, his horse Bess
met her own tragic but heroic end, collapsing and dying of exhaustion.

  Turpin leaping the Horsey gate; illustration by Cruickshank in William Harrison Ainsworth’s Rookwood. (Author)

  The novel spawned many imitations. In 1839, Henry Downes Miles wrote The Life of Richard Palmer, which also featured a fictional ride to York. This time Turpin hurtled up the Goswell Road towards the Angel at Islington.

  The gravelled road rung loudly to the rattling gallop of the gallant Bess, and the bright sparks flew brilliantly from the flints imbedded in the drift; for the unfrequent carriage traffic allowed such soft material to be used to bind the large coarse gravel with which the highway was repaired.

  In the book, Turpin stops at an ‘old fashioned hostel’ at Angel and downs one glass of brandy after another. As he dispatches his fifth shot, he hears his pursuers churn up the City Road, throws a guinea on the bar and takes off, telling the landlord to ‘keep the change until Dick Turpin returns’.

  Although this legendary twenty-four-hour ride never happened, the real Dick Turpin did end up settling in York as John Palmer. In October 1738 he was arrested for shooting his landlord’s cock in the street and locked up after failing to find a surety for bail. He was only identified as Dick Turpin when he wrote to his brother-in-law asking for money for bail. Yet he would be hauled before the courts for horse stealing rather than highway robbery or murder, not that it really mattered – the punishment was still death by hanging. On the day of his execution, 7 April 1739, dressed in a new frock coat and shoes and flanked by hired mourners, he flung himself from the gallows rather than waiting for the drop.