Getting Along Nicely

The Life and Lies of Charles Cosford

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about poor Alice Eliff, dying slowly from neglect in a dump in Deeping St James. Her husband, to all intents and purposes, went unpunished.

As a little counterpoint to that, here is a similar story, where the man was punished. Eventually.

Charles Cosford married Ann Trench (nee Allibone) in 1852. Ann was widowed in 1850, after less than two years of marriage, when she was only eighteen. She had no surviving children. Charles was four years older than Ann, and it was his first marriage.

Not his last though.

Charles and Ann lived in Northampton, on East Street, and like virtually every other man in the city, Charles worked as a bootmaker. He earned a good wage, up to seven shillings a day. Ann earned a few shillings a week, probably doing laundry. The family spent some time living in Birmingham in the 1860s, but returned to Northampton before 1871.

In 1870, Ann became pregnant, due in April 1871. She was, by this time, approximately 38. She had given birth to at least nine children since 1849, but most of them died at birth. Ann had tuberculosis, which causes low birthweight, and has a far higher rate of miscarriage. Congenital tuberculosis is rare, but usually fatal, and possibly accounts for the family’s high infant mortality.

Ann was very unwell with this pregnancy, and she was unable to work. Her eldest daughter, Sarah Ann (11), did a little work and was paid a shilling a week. Phoebe Mary (6) and Charles (3) were in school.

With a loving husband and gentle treatment, it’s likely that both Ann and her baby would have survived the postnatal period. But Charles Cosford was anything but loving. He was infuriated by Ann’s inability to work, and called her lazy. He was paid piecemeal for his bootmaking, and when he was paid, he would immediately go and spend the money. On himself.

He would buy himself bread and meat, and allow his wife and children the bread…after it had gone stale. He drank the rest. Ann, in common with so many women struggling to feed the family, gave what little she had to the children. When she complained to Charles, he punched her in the face. He dragged Ann up and down the house when she was approximately 37 weeks pregnant, kicking her out of the back door. He was drunk at the time, but according to his daughter, he would beat her drunk or sober.

The baby, Alfred, was born on 29th April. He was healthy, but Ann was very ill after the birth. Her midwife, Mrs Sharpe, begged to be allowed to fetch a doctor, but Ann asked her not to, saying Charles would kill her. There was no food in the house when Alfred was born - the midwife saw a single potato on a plate and a bit of tea. The potato was for one of the children. The midwife told Charles to get more food in, but he did not, and threatened her with a poker.

A week after the birth, Ann was up and about. When her sister asked her why, Ann told her that Charles had threatened to drag her down the stairs if she didn’t get up.

Ann was terrified of Charles. He told her that if she told anyone about the abuse, he would kill her. She believed him. Her friends knew he was abusive, and encouraged her to leave him, but she refused. She was too afraid he’d kill her. Charles would not allow the neighbours into the house. .

Ten days after the baby was born, Charles vanished for a few days. Ann sent for her sister-in-law, who was horrified to find the house completely devoid of food and fuel. Charles had left a tiny piece of bread to feed the four of them, and told Ann that if she went to the workhouse, he would kill her. If she got parish relief, he would kill her. If she told anyone anything that might get him sent to prison, he would kill her. He would physically stop his children from leaving the house to fetch help. He would not allow the neighbours into the house, and most of the neighbours were afraid of him.

Why did Charles have such an aversion to going to prison? Well, he’d been there before. In 1850, when Ann was still married to Harry Trench, he’d been sent to prison for stealing food from a garden. He went back in May 1852, for stealing radishes. These sentences were short - a month, three weeks - but clearly made an impression on him.

Charles returned to Ann a few days later - he was home when the midwife, Mrs Sharpe, visited on 12th May, although there was still no food. He stayed for around a month. In mid-June, a neighbour came to see Ann, and asked Charles how she was. “Getting along nicely” he replied. The neighbour, knowing better, shouted at him for not feeding Ann, and Charles threatened to bash her brains out, and also to take her to court. The neighbour said she wished he would, so she could tell a magistrate what he was doing.

The idea that she could tell the police does not seem to have occurred to her, but she took money and food to Ann when Charles was not at home.

A certain Mr Whitehouse heard about Ann’s want, and brought some food and fuel round. Taking fright at the interference of Mr Whitehouse - a coal merchant, and a man - Charles disappeared again. The Guardians, no doubt told about her suffering by Mr Whitehouse, provided her with six shillings and five loaves of bread. She was terribly ill by this time, unrecovered from the birth, malnourished and probably very anaemic. She was too weak to get up and make herself a cup of tea. The children were half-feral with hunger. She had a bed, but her linen was unwashed and it was “not fit for a dog to lie on”.

On 6th July, Mr Whitehouse had Ann and the children admitted to the workhouse. But it was too late. Ann was emaciated, in the last stages of tuberculosis. Her legs were swollen with fluid, her milk had dried up (if it ever came in), her lungs were tubercular and pleuritic. She knew she was dying, and told the nurse that she wished she’d had the baby in the workhouse in the first place. She died on 10th July. Baby Alfred died around the same time, but there was no investigation into his death: he simply starved.

The inquest was held at the workhouse the next day, a Tuesday. Charles was not in attendance - he had not returned to Northampton after absconding in June. In his absence, the jury decided that he was responsible for Ann’s death. She was helpless, and he had decided not to look after her. Her death was on him. A verdict of manslaughter was brought against him, and a manhunt began. His children were permanently admitted to the workhouse.

If they were hoping Charles would return to liberate his children from the Union, they were sadly disappointed. Charles had run off to Birmingham, which is not surprising - the Cosfords lived in the city for at least two years. He married a widow named Harriet in Wolverhampton in 1872 - using his real name - and they lived on Great Brook Street, with Harriet’s two children. In April 1873, Charles was arrested for leaving Harriet’s children at the workhouse in Worcester. A background check showed that he was wanted for wife murder, which Charles denied.

“I didn’t kill her: she died at Northampton when I was away.”

Charles was returned to Northampton by Birmingham’s police. The magistrates were asked to decide whether he should be arraigned on charges of murder or manslaughter. Most of the evidence was the same, but Charles had got his sister-in-law, Mary Cosford, to testify that SHE was present at the birth, gave Ann brandy and gin, and went in to see and feed Ann every day after Alfred’s birth. The midwife denied this utterly, and indignantly

“You never was there! And as for you saying there was brandy and gin in the house, more shame for you to say so when I had to give the poor woman a drop of water to keep her alive!”

When Mary confessed that she’d not spoken at the inquest, and only previously been in court on charges of theft, her evidence fell to bits. Charles was indicted for manslaughter. He reserved his defence.

His trial took place on 19th July 1871. Unusually, he chose to defend himself, often an act of unwarranted self-confidence. He declined to cross-examine any of the witnesses, but his wife Harriet was in court, and seen to be talking to his daughter during proceedings. Harriet was threatened with imprisonment if she continued to try and speak to the witnesses!

You might imagine that after two years, the witnesses may have shifted in their evidence, misremembering or altering their testimony. They did not. Some minor details shifted - the exact wording of what had been said - but the bulk of their testimony was unchanged since the inquest, almost exactly two years earlier. The workhouse master testified that the children had almost doubled their weight since admission - remarkable, considering how meagre workhouse diets could be.

Charles gave evidence after the close of the prosecution’s case. He claimed that he’d given Ann fifteen shillings a week. He denied hurting her, and claimed he’d never have left her if he’d thought she was going to die. He blamed her family, saying they’d given him a miserable life for eighteen years. He called his sister-in-law to give evidence again, and the man Ann had previously worked for.

The prosecution pointed out that Charles had never once enquired about his wife or children, in the two years since her death. The jury immediately found him guilty of manslaughter.

The judge sentenced him to fifteen months in prison with hard labour. He said that this would require him to be parted from his children for a considerable time, but that Charles would not feel that separation, and that the children would not be the losers, as good care would be taken of them.

Charles served his sentence in Northampton. He went back to Wolverhampton after his release, taking his only surviving son. However, by 1891, he was back in Northampton, where he died in 1904. His children appear to have eventually emigrated to Canada.

If we compare the deaths of Alice Eliff and Ann Cosford, there are similarities. Men abandoning their terminally ill wives in their hour of need, unwilling to provide, unwilling to let others provide, unwilling to involve outside agencies. But there is an intent in Charles Cosford’s actions that is missing from John Eliff’s.

Charles Cosford seemed determined that Ann should die. He kept her under the threat of death, but tried to engineer her actual death so that he could appear blameless. He wanted to be free afterwards - perhaps he had a second wife already lined up in Birmingham.

He was a nasty, controlling, abusive bully; and like all bullies, a coward, frightened off when a ‘better’ man came along to improve things. A man who enjoyed wielding power over other women, who enjoyed seeing his wife suffer. A man convinced that running away was a sufficient alibi. A man terrified of going back to prison, yet self-confident enough to believe he could exonerate himself in court. A man prepared to attempt to intimidate his daughter in court. Not a clever man, but one capable of the most inhuman behaviour.

And yet, if he hadn’t run away, I strongly suspect he would never have been found guilty. Another case in the same county, a year later, proves the point. Henry Garlick allowed his 37 year old wife, Martha, to starve to death during an illness. Like Charles, he drank the money he earned, and beat his wife. But he did not run away when she died, and he was acquitted of manslaughter.

Ann Cosford

1829-1871

Martha Garlick

1838-1874