Last year, I spent some time working with Professor Rosalind Crone on research for the new Lady Killers series (I also did this for series two). Anyway, it’s finally out so go and enjoy the FRUITS OF MY LABOUR on BBC Sounds.
I’ve also published a blog co-written with my friend Claire Richardson, about an unusual ledger stone in Peterborough cathedral, which led us to a possible ecclesiastical/medical conspiracy…
NOW. TELL ME THIS. Why must social media be poisoned by Nazis? I don’t talk much about my own politics in writing, but I hope my reading audience is broadly against Nazis.
The Friday Murder Club is free, and it will remain free, but the platform may shift… (And if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, you can read more about this here and here and here).
THIS WEEK, another hideous family murder. It’s Christmas 1890 in Essex…
The Leatherdale clan came from Wakes Colne, west of Colchester. Thomas Leatherdale married Jemima Potter in 1805, and they had at least seven children. The two that concern our story are James (born in 1815) and Joseph (born in 1822). The Leatherdales had a small farm at Wakes Colne. Thomas died in 1861, and Jemima died in 1867.
James married first, in September 1837. His wife was Anna Bugg. They lived in Fordham, not far from where James grew up, and had a huge brood of unusually named children. Zillah was born a month after the wedding. She was swiftly followed by Octavia (1839-1875), Jephtha (1841-1895), Jubal (1844-1877), Cornelius (1846-1917), Emily (1848-1903), Naomia (born 1851), Hazar (1853-?), Frank (1855-1869), Salome (1855-?), Gregory (1857-1928), Antoinette (1858-1947) and Mina (1860-1884). One gets the impression that someone in the household was widely read… James was a labourer, but managed to support his family fairly well.
Joseph married Elizabeth Hughes in 1846. They had just two children, Adelaide (1846-1884) and Keziah (1856-1931), and Joseph took over his father’s farm in the 1840s. He later moved to Virley, and ran The White Hart Inn.
Naomia Leatherdale appears to have been close to her uncle Joseph, perhaps because his daughters were her age. It could also have been a matter of space: Joseph had houseroom, and James did not. Perhaps Naomia moved in to help in the pub. She fell pregnant in the summer of 1872, by a man named Charles Barrett. They didn’t marry, (although Naomia pretended to be married when registering the birth, naming his father as Edward Leatherdale), and her son was registered Arthur Taylor Leatherdale. Charles Barrett was a drunk, and known locally as ‘Crazy Charlie’. He had arranged (somehow!) for a man named Taylor to accept paternity of the baby. But it seems neither man had any interest in parenting. Charles died when Arthur was still young.
By the time Arthur was born, on 2nd February 1873, the Leatherdales had left Virley and moved next door to Salcott. Salcott (and indeed Virley) is on the very edge of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex. Blackwater is a strange place, as all marshes are; full of unexpected water, high tides, darkness and mystery.
Between the mouths of the Blackwater and the Colne, on the east coast of Essex, lies an extensive marshy tract veined and freckled in every part with water. It is a wide waste of debatable ground contested by sea and land, subject to incessant incursions from the former, but stubbornly maintained by the latter. At high tide the appearance is that of a vast surface of moss or Sargasso weed floating on the sea, with rents and patches of shining water traversing and dappling it in all directions. The creeks, some of considerable length and breadth, extend many miles inland, and are arteries whence branches out a fibrous tissue of smaller channels, flushed with water twice in the twenty-four hours. At noon-tides, and especially at the equinoxes, the sea asserts its royalty over this vast region, and overflows the whole.
Mehalah, by Sabine Baring-Gould, 1884.
But to the Leatherdales, it was just home. They lived at Vine Cottage.
Naomia probably stayed with her aunt and uncle for a while after the birth. However, by 1881, she was in London working as a servant, and Arthur was being raised by Joseph and Elizabeth. Joseph’s daughters had both left home by this time. Adelaide died in 1884, but Keziah was married and working as a nurse in the village.
In 1882, Naomia married in London, and left the country, moving to South Africa. She never returned. Arthur’s natural father died at some point between 1872 and 1891, allegedly. Joseph kept working on the land, running a small seed business, and Arthur began working as a delivery driver in due course. Arthur worked for his great-uncle.
In July 1890, Elizabeth Leatherdale died. This left Joseph and Arthur alone in the house, albeit with frequent visitors from family and neighbours. And strange things began to happen. As I said, Blackwater can be an eerie place, but this was different. Targeted.
At Easter, while Elizabeth was still alive, Joseph found his horse’s tail had been cut off. Someone had written on the shed door
You had better be on the look out for I am not done with you. I shall cut the horse’s tongue out and shoot you and Arthur if you don’t mind.
Elsewhere, the same hand had written “I hate the very sight of you in Salcott.” On three occasions, outhouses were set fire to. Arthur was suspected of setting the fires, and of trying to extort money afterwards, but nothing came of it. It was not a happy house. Arthur resented paying 18d a week in board, because he had to make his own dinner and Joseph never lit the fire.
But Joseph despaired entirely of his young great-nephew, and his despair was well known. Several men in the village believed Arthur would eventually kill the old man. On 19th December, Joseph told a man from Maldon:
“Well I don’t know squire, but this ere young’un is going to be a trouble to me. He ain’t a drunkard but he will get out of a night with the girls. I count he will get himself into trouble and then go and enlist for a soldier. He is a rum’un.”
Saturday 20th December, close to Christmas, but a working day. At 8:45am, Joseph was seen in the street. At 9:00am, a neighbour of the Leatherdales heard a muffled gunshot. At 10am, Arthur met up with a neighbour to go to Colchester. He was in a very good mood, and generous. He asked Esther Foakes, the daughter of his neighbour, to be his girlfriend and gave her a valuable hairpin as a courting gift. He gave a similar pin to Esther’s cousin.
Suspicions, however, were not aroused. Nobody investigated the gunshot, and Arthur’s story that his great uncle had gone to London was initially believed. He went to lodge with a neighbour - Esther’s mother - in Joseph’s absence.
On the 22nd, Arthur visited his cousin Keziah (now surnamed Sortwell) in Tollesbury. He took her half a sovereign, and told her it was a Christmas present from her father, who had been called to London to visit his younger brother Oliver.
Keziah was immediately suspicious. She knew that Oliver, who lived in Tottenham, had not been in contact with the family for many years. She telegraphed two of her uncles, not believing her father would be with either of them. And he was not. The next day, she went to visit Arthur to question him about her father’s whereabouts. Unsatisfied with his answers, she went to the local policeman, stationed at Tolleshunt Darcy. The policeman fetched Arthur and made him get the key to the house. Arthur and the policeman searched the house and outbuildings. Arthur fainted, possibly to try and stop the policeman going into the back kitchen.
A locked cupboard in the back kitchen was opened, and there lay the dead body of Joseph. He had been shot through the head, and his head was wrapped in a sack. There were spots of blood all over the kitchen. There were two guns in the house. One was loaded. The other had recently been discharged.
Arthur was arrested. He told the policeman that four or five other men had been present when Arthur was shot, and that he would not ‘split’ on them. A part of a gun rod was found in Arthur’s pocket. It corresponded to one of the guns in the house. He also had several gun caps, which matched the gun cap found in the loaded gun.
The inquest opened on Christmas Eve, at the Sun inn. The jury viewed Joseph’s body in situ, by candlelight, and murmured about the lack of blood that would surely have gushed from such a wound. The body was identified by Joseph and James’ youngest brother Jonathan. Arthur attended, in smart dress, and said nothing although he did weep. A doctor had examined the body and found that Joseph was shot at point-blank range in the back of the neck, at the junction with the skull.
An execution.
The inquest was adjourned for Christmas, although it’s difficult to imagine there was much merriment among the Leatherdales. While they waited, Arthur made a strange confession, reprinted in the newspaper
I did not kill my uncle but I got someone. I told him all the money he had got in his pocket he should have for the job and he got some more to help him and after they had shot him I gave them a sack and a halter. This is all I have got to say and I shall not split.
The inquest reconvened in the schoolroom at Salcott on 30th December. Joseph’s burial had taken place the previous day, in a snowstorm, his daughter weeping bitterly throughout. This inquest hearing was much longer than the first, with many witnesses. Keziah, who had lost both parents in under six months, was the first witness. As well as describing the events leading to the grim discovery, she told the coroner about Arthur and Joseph’s relationship. Arthur was a thief, eternally stealing things from the house, and a liar. Joseph had threatened to call the police if he found anything else missing.
Mrs Moss, the neighbour who Arthur was lodging with, told the court that this arrangement had been made more than a week before the murder. The inquest closed with a verdict of wilful murder.
The next day, Arthur was taken before the magistrates. There was new evidence: that Arthur had purchased shot two days before the murder, and that Arthur had cashed a cheque at the end of November, presumably to put his late profligacy into context. Arthur had bought a watch, for fourteen shillings, on the day of the murder. He had also been to Maldon and bought a waistcoat and overcoat, costing 36s 5d. Arthur paid for it all in cash.
And so Arthur was sent for trial at the next Essex assizes, due to be held in March 1891, and he waited in Springfield prison (now HMP Chelmsford). He was still only seventeen.
And when Joseph’s home and possession were sold at auction in January, people came from miles around to see the house where the murder was done. The creek flooded during the auction, and many of them became stranded.
The trial commenced on 11th March 1891, two days into the assize. Arthur pleaded not guilty. No new evidence was offered, and there was no evidence at all of these men who had come to execute Joseph at Arthur’s behest for pennies. Some evidence about sanity was raised: Arthur’s parentage and mad great-aunt were discussed. A doctor examined Arthur and gave evidence that he seemed sane, and was evidently able to tell right from wrong. However, he thought him to be weak minded and commented on the history of insanity in the family.
Arthur’s defence representative, who had tried very hard to establish that Arthur was mad, said the only explanation for the crime was insanity.
The jury retired for forty minutes to consider the verdict, perhaps because of Arthur’s youth. Eventually, they pronounced him guilty, but added a strong recommendation for mercy on account of age.
It was not within the judge’s power to grant that mercy in sentencing, so he donned his black cap and passed the death sentence, and recommended that Arthur turn to God rather than the government for mercy.
Arthur said nothing.
Arthur’s execution was scheduled for just after Easter. Easter was early that year (as it will be this year), so this was 31st March. He spent this time in the condemened cell at Chelmsford, and was visited by Kezia Sortwell. He told her where some money was hidden in Vine Cottage. After her visit, Arthur became distressed, and was placed on suicide watch.
However, on 17th March, word was recieved at the prison that Arthur’s death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment. It was said that nobody was more astonished than Keziah Sortwell. The commutation was generally well recieved, with the newspapers commenting on how the crime seemed the act of a madman.
Arthur disappeared into the prison system, spending time at Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight. He moved to HMP Maidstone in the 1900s and remained there until he was released, on 19th April 1911, having served twenty years. He went to Birmingham, and married a woman ten years his junior in 1918. They lived on Tindal Street, and Arthur never got into trouble again. He died in 1945, and had no children.
The press focused on Arthur’s weak intellect, his youth and his family history of insanity to excuse his actions. He was so young, but he was also cunning. It seems likely that Elizabeth Leatherdale, Joseph’s wife, was the closest thing to a mother Arthur had. Arthur was already acting out - trying to get money, doing mean, peevish minor crimes - when she died. And when she died, Joseph expected Arthur to get on with it, to make his own dinner, and pay rent like a man.
Joseph worried that Arthur was too like his father; not a drunkard, but a cad, likely to get girls pregnant. He was seeing Esther Foakes, but also Esther’s cousin. And Joseph knew full well that Arthur had no money to support a wife or a child. So they argued. Joseph nagged. Arthur’s resentment grew deeper.
And at some point, in the middle of December 1890, he made a concrete plan to execute his uncle, using Christmas to give him an excuse. But Arthur was seventeen, and didn’t think it through. He knew when to do it, when they were getting ready to go out in the back kitchen. He knew how to do it. The evidence suggested that Joseph had been on his knees when he died. Arthur had the foresight to muffle the gun and enclose his uncle’s head. A picture emerges of a terrible scenario, where Arthur forces his uncle to his knees at gunpoint, perhaps throwing a sack over him immediately before shooting. It also suggested that Arthur knew where to shoot to ensure a clean kill. There were no signs of a struggle.
But then what? Spend his money, sure. Hide the body. Run away to the neighbour’s house. Pretend Joseph had gone away and didn’t come back. But then what? Arthur seems to have believed that nobody would find Joseph, or perhaps planned to leave the village in a leisurely manner after Christmas.
And when Joseph’s body was found, he came up with a truly bizarre, schlock fiction narrative where he hired a hitman with no money, and the hitmen somehow glided in and out of the house without being seen.
Oddly, there were hints that all was not well in Salcott. Several witnesses recieved threatening letters after the trial, letters that could not have been written by Arthur as he was constantly watched. It seems this insular community didn’t appreciate the amount of scrutiny it was getting from outside, and this case inflamed old grudges.
Keziah Sortwell emigrated to Australia after 1911, and died in 1931.
Joseph Leatherdale
(1822-1890)