Chapter 6. The Prime Suspect
On Christmas Eve, a vital break in the case came when the maul used as the weapon to kill the Marrs was recognised by Mr Vermilloe, the landlord of The Pear Tree. He reported that the initials I.P. were those of its owner John Peterson, a German carpenter from Hamburg who had recently lodged at The Pear Tree and left his tool chest there for safe keeping when he returned to sea.
This breakthrough led to to John Williams. He was twenty-seven, an ordinary seaman who had once sailed with Timothy Marr on the Dover Castle. Upon his return from sea, he had taken lodgings down by the river at The Pear Tree in Cinnamon Street, Wapping – still cobbled today as it was in 1811. Although superior in education to his colleagues and possessing a fastidious, even foppish concern for his appearance, he was of quick temper and easily provoked into brawls. As well as the connection to Mr Marr, he had been seen at the King’s Arms on the evening of the murder of the Williamsons and returning to his lodging that night after twelve, he requested his room-mates to put out the candle. This circumstantial evidence was enough to lead to his arrest and remand at Coldbath Fields Prison in Clerkenwell, pending further investigation.
That very evening, John Williams was brought to Shadwell for interrogation in front of the magistrates in a crowded courthouse. John Turner, the Williamson’s lodger who had seen the killer standing over Mrs Williamson’s corpse was there but although he recognised John Williams as a regular at the King’s Arms, he could not positively identify him as the killer. The questioning moved on to the laundress who washed John Williams’ clothes. She confirmed bloody finger marks upon a shirt but was unclear of the date of this discovery. Then Mrs Vermilloe took the stand (her husband was confined to Newgate Prison for debt) and when she was overcome with emotion at being asked to identify the maul, two little boys were sent for who had been playing with it.
At this moment, John Williams was questioned about his bloody shirt only to describe a fight he had with a number of Irish coal-heavers over a card game at The Royal Oak. Next, his fellow lodgers were asked about Williams’ mysterious request to put out the candle, and it became unclear which night this incident occurred. Next, one of the boys who had been playing with the maul, William Rice, aged eleven years old, arrived. He confirmed that the maul used to kill the Marrs was the same one from The Pear Tree and he had not seen it for a month.
It was now late on Christmas Eve, and the magistrates decided to adjourn proceedings until after the holiday. At this point John Williams could contain his frustration no longer and attempted to speak – calling out a question – but was forced to desist. We shall never know what he tried to ask. Instead, he was taken back to Coldbath Fields Prison and residents of the neighbourhood were able to sleep peacefully in their beds for the first time in many weeks, secure now in the widely-held but entirely tenuous assumption that the killer was under lock and key.
You may read a further report upon the resumption of the hearing on Boxing Day.
Click on Paul Bommer’s map of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders to explore further
I am indebted to PD James’ ‘The Maul & The Peartree’ which stands as the authoritative account of these events. Thanks are also due to the Bishopsgate Institute and Tower Hamlets Local History Archive.
You may like to read the earlier instalments of this serial which runs throughout December
The Robin’s Christmas Eve
This extract is from ‘Aunt Louisa’s Keepsake’ published by Frederick Warne which was given to me by Libby Hall. The copy is inscribed ‘Christmas 1896’ inside the front cover.
‘Twas Christmas-time, a dreary night,
The snow fell thick and fast,
And o’er the country swept the wind,
A keen and wintry blast.
The Robin early went to bed,
Puffed up just like a ball,
He slept all night on one small leg,
Yet managed not to fall.
No food had touched his beak,
And not a chance had he
Of ever touching food again,
As far as he could see.
The stove had not burnt very low,
But still was warm and bright,
And round the spot whereon it stood,
Threw forth a cheerful light.
Now Robin from a corner hopped,
Within the fire’s light.
Shivering and cold, it was to him
A most enchanting sight.
But he is almost starved, poor bird!
Food he must have, or die,
Unless it seems, alas! for that
Within these walls to try.
Perhaps ‘t is thought by those who read
To doubtful to be true,
That just when they were wanted so
Some hand should bread crumbs strew.
But this is how it came to pass,
An ancient dame had said,
Her legacy unto the poor
Should all be spent on bread.
Enough there was for quite a feast,
Robin was glad to find.
The hungry fellow ate them all,
Nor left one crumb behind.
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Chapter 5. Indescribable Panic
At Dove Cottage in Keswick, three hundred miles north of London, Robert Southey and Thomas de Quincey were reading the national newspapers with feverish excitement, as – like thousands of others – they followed every turn in the saga of the murders in Shadwell in December 1811. Southey declared it a rare example of “a private event of that order which rose to the dignity of a national event.” De Quincey wrote “the panic was indescribable. One lady, my next neighbour, whom I personally knew, living at that moment, during the absence of her husband, with a few servants in a very solitary house, never rested until she had placed eighteen doors (so she told me, and indeed satisfied me by oracular proof), each secured by ponderous bolts, and bars, and chains, between her own bedroom and any intruder of human build.”
In London, the question was raised how John Turner, the lodger at the King’s Arms, could have seen the murderer and then abandoned the infant Kitty Stilwell to her fate in seeking his own escape from the building. But De Quincey, having read the newspaper reports, launched into a powerful imaginative identification with the lodger. In justification of leaving the child sleeping, De Quincey surmised that the lodger “felt sure that sure that the murderer would not be satisfied to kill the poor child whilst unconscious. This would be to defeat his whole purpose in murdering her at all – to be an epicure of murder.” A startling creative leap.
At the inquest, Turner explained in his own words, “I went to bed and had not been there above five minutes before I heard the front door being banged to: very hard. Immediately afterwards I heard the servant exclaim ‘We are all murdered’ or ‘shall be murdered’ two or three times, I cannot be exactly sure which of the expressions she made use of. I had not been asleep. I heard the sound of two or three blows, but with what weapon I cannot say. Shortly afterwards, I heard Mr Williamson cry out, ‘I’m a dead man.'”
Although he knew of the murders a week earlier, astoundingly, Turner unlocked his door and crept downstairs where he spied through a doorway upon the murderer in the dark rifling through the pockets of a victim. “I did not see his face, and I only saw that one person. I was fearful and I went upstairs as quick but as softly as I could. I thought first of getting under the bed, but was fearful I should be found. I then took the two sheets, tied them together, tied them to the bed post, opened the window and lowered myself down by the sheets.”
No-one knew where the murder or murderers would strike next. “Many of our readers” wrote Thomas Macaulay years later, “can remember the state of London just after the murders of Marr and Williamson – the terror which was on every face – the careful barring of doors – the providing of blunderbusses and watchmen’s rattles. We know of a shop keeper who on that occasion sold three hundred rattles in ten hours.”
Regular reports will be forthcoming here during the Christmas holidays.
Robert Southey
Thomas de Quincey
Click on Paul Bommer’s map of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders to explore further
I am indebted to PD James’ ‘The Maul & The Peartree’ which stands as the authoritative account of these events. Thanks are also due to the Bishopsgate Institute and Tower Hamlets Local History Archive.
You may like to read the earlier instalments of this serial which runs throughout December
Scenes From Dennis Severs’ House
Over the past year, it has been my delight to work for the Spitalfields Trust at Dennis Severs’ House, devising the new Dennis Severs’ Tour and rehearsing the actors, Joel Saxon and Lisa D’Agostino who are hosts. Here I present a few vignettes of the life of this celebrated house in Folgate St.
If you would like to visit over the festive period , please check www.dennissevershouse.co.uk because cancellations mean tickets can become available at short notice
The Dining Room at Christmas
‘Mrs Jervis prefers a roast swan at Christmas. It suits her aristocratic sensibilities as it was a favoured dish in the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, particularly when skinned and redressed in its feathers and served with a yellow pepper sauce. Sometimes she serves it stuffed with a series of increasingly smaller birds, in the style of a turducken.
Mature swans have little subcutaneous fat and their flesh is exceedingly dry, making them a tough and entirely unsuitable meat. Consequently, eating an adult plumed swan was more of a statement than a culinary treat. Mrs Jervis chooses a cygnet hatched in June, plump and tender by December, as the perfect Christmas meat – still tender and fatty.’
The kitchen dresser groans under the proliferation of jellies, puddings and pies at this time of year
Lisa D’Agostino has been hosting tours since November
‘At twenty seconds to midnight on 31st of December 1899, the old house holds its breath. Miss Isabel Jervis waits by her fire. She is all alone now. She gazes at Queen Victoria’s portrait and she wonders what the twentieth century will hold. Next morning, when she opens the shutters, the streets are silent and empty.
When Victoria died in the arms of her German grandson, the Kaiser, at Osborne House, the Lord Chamberlain knew what to do. As long as there were remnants of a silk industry in Spitalfields where the fabric of her wedding dress was made, the Queen wished that the black crepe for her funeral pall was woven there too. And it was.’
Joel Saxon has been hosting tours since the house reopened in the summer
‘Now our journey to the heart of the house arrives at the private place that holds its owner by night, the master’s bedchamber. Here society ends and intimacy begins. At the centre of the room stands the grandest upholstered four-poster bed imaginable, hung with braided damask.
Here Edward and Elizabeth Jervis conceived their children. They wedded at Christ Church on 2nd June 1761 and shared this bed throughout their marriage. They were the first generation to do so, for theirs was a love match.’
‘Mrs Jervis wore no underwear, just a shift of fine linen, then silk stockings and garters to hold them up. Next came her stays of whalebone, that we should call a corset, and then her hooped petticoat, also with whalebone and cross ties to maintain the oval shape of the dress and not allow it to become circular. Finally, Mrs Jervis could put on her dress, which came in three pieces, first the skirt, then the stomacher followed by the bodice. There were no hooks or buttons to hold it all together, so pins would be used and a few discreet stitches where necessary. As a finishing touch, lace sleeve ruffles were added and a lappet upon her head. Shoes and a fan completed the outfit.’
‘Here we enter the boudoir – a powerfully feminine space where fresh, soft colours prevail. The room is as warm as toast. A newly installed hob grate has been fitted to the fire to accommodate coal and it burns more efficiently than ever before. The ladies are halfway down the stairs, but their chairs are still warm and their tea is still steaming in their cups. The chairs encourage a more relaxed posture and the daybed offers an unspoken invitation to recline. How tempting it is to remove our shoes? Just in from the past, we are more than glad to meet such comfort.’
‘Admire Mr Jervis’ punchbowl – ‘punch’ is the Hindu word for five which is why there are always five ingredients. Oddly enough, when someone punches you in the mouth it also has five ingredients.’ (Photograph by René Stoeltie)
All photographs by Lucinda Douglas Menzies except when credited otherwise
Fritz Wegner’s Christmas Plates
A few years ago, I came across this set of small souvenir Christmas plates Fritz Wegner designed for Fleetwood of Wyoming between 1980 and 1983 in limited editions, which I acquired for almost nothing. They are crudely produced, not unlike those ceramics sold in copyshops with photographic transfers, yet this cheap mass-produced quality endears them to me and I set them out on the dresser every Christmas with fondness.
I discovered my delight in the work of illustrator Fritz Wegner (1924-2015) in primary school through his drawings for Fattypuffs & Thinifers by Andrew Maurois. Throughout my childhood, I cherished his book illustrations whenever I came across them and the love of his charismatically idiosyncratic sketchy line has stayed with me ever since.
Only recently have I learnt that Fritz Wegner was born into a Jewish family in Vienna and severely beaten by a Nazi-supporting teacher for a caricature he drew of Adolf Hitler at the age of thirteen. To escape, his family sent him alone to London in August 1938 where he was offered a scholarship at St Martin’s School of Art at fourteen years old, even though he could barely speak English.
Journey to Bethlehem, 1983
The Shepherds, 1982
The Holy Child, 1981
The Magi, 1980
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Chapter 4. New Sanguinary Atrocities
If any of my readers would care to join me for a socially-distanced guided walk through the history of Spitalfields on Boxing Day at noon please drop a line to spitalfieldslife@gmail.com
Late on the night of 19th December 1811, events were to take an even more remarkable turn. Mr Anderson, the Parish Constable, who lived in New Gravel Lane opposite the King’s Arms in Shadwell, decided to cross the road after closing time to get a top-up for his pint-pot from his good friend Mr Williamson, the landlord. As he opened his front door, he saw a nearly-naked man suspended in mid-air by sheets knotted together from a garret window of the pub opposite screaming, “Murder! Murder!” Mr Anderson grabbed his sword and staff from his house and emerged again just as John Turner, the lodger, dropped the last eight feet into the arms of the watchman Shadrick Newhall.
Mr Anderson prised open the pavement flap that led to the cellar of the King’s Arms. Inside, on the cellar steps, the landlord’s dead body was visible in the darkness, lying upside down with its legs splayed in the direction of the bar room above. An iron bar smothered in blood lay alongside the corpse, Mr Williamson’s throat was cut to the bone, his head was beaten in and his right leg fractured. He had put up a courageous fight, revealed by the hand dreadfully hacked up as if in his last moments he had clutched at the knife that finished him off. One thumb dangled loosely in the blood trickling down the staircase.
As Mr Andersen stood transfixed at his discovery, a cry came from the crowd gathering in the street, “Where’s the old man?” Startled from his reverie, Andersen made his way up the stairs, stepping carefully over the body. On the ground floor, he found the corpses of Mrs Williamson and the servant girl, Bridget Harrington, both slaughtered with equal cruelty. In the darkness of the first floor bedroom, he came upon the Williamson’s grandchild, Kitty Stillwell, lying in her bed asleep and unharmed. Overcome with powerful mixed emotions, he carried the sleepy little girl from the house into the street.
As John Turner recovered himself, he explained that he had seen a tall man in a long Flushing coat standing over the body of Mrs Williamson, corresponding to a description of a man seen outside the King’s Arms that night. A window at the back which had been used for escape was left open with bloodstains on the sill. It was discovered that Mr Williamson’s watch was missing.
That night, the wardens of St Paul’s Shadwell gathered in the vestry in incredulous horror, realising that they were caught up in events so chillingly macabre as to be entirely beyond control of any mortal. No-one could say how many more murders were yet to come or predict where these disquieting events might lead. They did all they could, which was to issue a reward of one hundred guineas.
Earlier that day, a critical discovery had been made concerning the maul which had been used in the slaying of Timothy Marr and his family. Although a handbill had been published requesting information as to the origin of the maul, it was only now that the blood and hair were removed from the maul to reveal the owner’s intials I.P.
As the feast of Christmas came closer and innocent children lay sleepless in their beds listening for the tinkle of St Nicholas’ sleigh bells, all across London their parents lay awake in terror craning for any sound that might presage the imminent invasion of unknown intruders with violent murderous intent.
Below you can see the site of the King’s Arms today. The building was swept away with the expansion of the London docks in the nineteenth century, now these walls that weave through Wapping are mere remnants of the docks that survived the bombing of World War II to be closed down in the late twentieth century, and behind this wall is a housing estate of recent date.
Reports will be posted as there is further news of these escalating occurrences.
Click on Paul Bommer’s map of the Ratcliffe Highway Murders to explore further
I am indebted to PD James’ ‘The Maul & The Peartree’ which stands as the authoritative account of these events. Thanks are also due to the Bishopsgate Institute and Tower Hamlets Local History Archive.
You may like to read the earlier instalments of this serial which runs throughout December
1. The Death Of A Linen Draper
Spitalfields Parties of Yesteryear
The van drivers of the Spitalfields Market certainly knew how to throw a party, as illustrated by this magnificent collection of photographs in the possession of George Bardwell who worked in the market from 1946 until the late seventies. George explained to me how the drivers saved up all year in a Christmas Club and hired Poplar Town Hall to stage shindigs for their families at this season. Everyone got togged up and tables overflowed with sponge cakes and jam tarts, there were presents for all and entertainments galore. Then, once the tables were cleared and the children safely despatched to their beds, it was time for some adult entertainment in the form of drinks and dancing until the early hours.
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