In case you missed it, I’m currently around halfway through my doctoral research into inquests. I wrote about one of those cases last week, the incredibly miserable story of Leah Eliza Bothamley, who was not murdered.
Today’s case is one that I found in the process of that research, although not being in Peterborough, isn’t included in my doctorate. And like Leah’s story, it is one of blended families and misery.
Blended families are not a new phenomena. Divorce was not really an option to most people until well into the twentieth century. However, widowhood was common, and the patterns of work and poverty meant most younger widowed parents sought remarriage, because the other option was being separated from their children in workhouse. This is not to say all remarriage was an economic decision, or that the nineteenth-century poor never got butterflies in their stomach when they caught someone’s eye. Rather that most people could not afford to remain single without significant social support, from their parents, their unmarried sisters or sisters-in-law, or their networks of aunties.
Today’s story is about a blended family gone wrong, and we are in 1850s Kettering and Geddington.
Elizabeth Chapman was born in late 1787 in the pretty village of Geddington, between Kettering and Corby. Corby was 150 years away from entering its boom phase of metalworking, so Kettering was the nearest big town.
Elizabeth’s marital history is tangled. She married John Ashley in January 1811, and gave birth to her only known child, Susannah, on 27th October that year. John appears to have died in Kettering in 1813. She then appears to have married a man named Daniels, although it’s possible that there was another husband in between John Ashley and Mr Daniels.
In 1828, she married John Cross. But John Cross died in 1834. Elizabeth’s daughter, Susannah, married a year later and perhaps Elizabeth lived with her daughter in Wollaston for a time. This was, perhaps, not ideal for the newlyweds.
Robert Parker was also born in Geddington, on 10th January 1808. He married Elizabeth Alsop in the village on 10th December 1837. Their daughter, also Elizabeth, was born in March 1838. Elizabeth senior died in early October 1838, after less than a year of marriage. She was twenty-seven.
This left Robert in a predicament. He was thirty, and worked on the land. This was not a job that lent itself to domestic management or taking care of a six-month-old baby. His mother died when he was eleven, and his father was ailing. By mid-1839, five of his seven siblings were dead and the survivors - Mary and William - were both freshly married, with young families to support.
Robert needed another wife. In fairness, he mourned his first wife for a full year, but on 18th October 1839, he married Elizabeth Chapman - now Elizabeth Cross - in Kettering. This marriage was mismatched in age: Robert was thirty-one, Elizabeth was nearly fifty-two. Robert may have been marrying Elizabeth in the mistaken belief that her brother Simon would give them money. It does not seem to have been a marriage grounded in love.
The Parkers lived at Kettering at Goadbys Yard. Now a car park, this area used to be crammed with housing. It’s likely that the Parkers had little more than a single room here. Conditions had not much improved by 1851, when they lived behind the Angel Inn. This hotel is long gone, but it faced onto Angel Yard off Dalkeith Street.
A lot of people lived in this kind of accomodation, and coped. The Parkers did not. Perhaps Robert was kind to his wife to begin with, glad to have someone to look after his tiny daughter, glad the family had no likelihood of expanding. But maybe he was always a bully. Maybe he always kept money from her. Maybe he always threatened her, starved her, and manhandled her.
In late 1853, the family moved to a new lodging on Nags Head Lane, another yard behind a pub. Robert was now forty-six, Elizabeth was sixty-six although she appeared older, and little Elizabeth was sixteen. The new lodging had two rooms, one upstairs and one down. The upstairs room was for sleeping, but there was no furniture, only straw. The downstairs room contained a battered old chair, for Robert’s exclusive use, as well as a small table and a box. Elizabeth always sat on the box, whether Robert was there or not.
There was never a fire in this tiny apartment, and Mrs Vicars next door often asked Elizabeth to come round in the day and warm up. Mrs Vicars often gave Elizabeth some tea, some bread and butter, because there was never food in the house. Bread was fetched every payday, but never lasted the week, and it seems Young Elizabeth and her father ate most of it: Elizabeth was terrified to eat anything during the day in case Robert hit her when he got in. Mrs Vicars tried to persuade Elizabeth to go to the Guardians of the Poor for relief, but she refused. Her husband was in work, so she wasn’t eligible (so she believed) even though he only earned eleven shillings a week. Robert usually earned twelve to fifteen shillings, so it’s likely that he lied about his earnings to his wife.
Elizabeth’s daughter, Susannah, visited at Easter (April 16th) and was appalled at her mother’s starvation, her lack of clothing, and noticed bruises on her wrists. She asked her mother if Robert ill-used her, and Elizabeth said sometimes…but she gave no other information, and Susannah didn’t push it.
Another neighbour, Mrs Jones, had known Elizabeth for more than twenty years. She also saw her in April 1854, and asked her how it came to be that she was so dirty, and so thin. Elizabeth told her that Robert gave her no money for soap, and even if he had, she was too weak to clean properly. Mrs Jones gave Elizabeth food, and took her some wood for the fire. Elizabeth said to her
“My dear creature, did you ever see such miserable object in your life?”
Mrs Jones had not, and horrified at the state of Elizabeth’s clothing, brought her a clean nightdress. This was an extraordinary act of charity in such an impoverished friendship group!
Elizabeth also told Mrs Jones that Young Elizabeth beat her regularly. This indignity, Mrs Jones would not stand for. She went to Young Elizabeth and told her that if she did it again, she’d send for a policeman and have her jailed. It’s not clear whether Young Elizabeth took any notice.
Young Elizabeth was indolent in the extreme for the time. She had no work, was out all night (with all that implied), and spent all day sleeping or hanging out with her friend. She did nothing to help her stepmother, who it should be remembered, was the only maternal figure she’d ever known, and evidently had no qualms about beating the delicate, elderly woman. Young Elizabeth also pawned her stepmother’s clothing without permission, and told nobody what she’d done with the money.
On Saturday 22nd July 1854, Mrs Vicars heard a commotion next door. The walls were thin, there was no privacy. Elizabeth’s two surviving brothers had been to see her. Robert was under the impression that Simon, who had a government pension and lived nearby, had lots of money and ought to give them some, and was yelling at Elizabeth about it. Elizabeth was too weak to climb the stairs, so Robert said he would carry her, if she got on the box. The last Mrs Vicars heard of them was Robert lugging Elizabeth upstairs, complaining bitterly
“Die when you will, you’ll go to the devil”
On Monday morning, young Elizabeth was crying in the yard outside their house. Another neighbour, Mrs Roughton, asked her what was wrong
“Oh Mrs Roughton, you’ll never see my mother no more.”
Mrs Roughton went to the house. Young Elizabeth refused to go upstairs, and Mrs Roughton admitted at the inquest that she didn’t really want to either, she was afraid. Instead, she fetched a different neighbour, went home and closed her door.
Mrs Vicars, apparently summoned by some other brave neighbour, was not afraid to go in and found her dying. She was found in this deplorable house, clothing teeming with lice, with a bit of bread and cold pudding on a saucer nearby. A doctor came, but it was too late, Elizabeth died at 11am.
The inquest was held the next day, and the doctor requested permission to do a post-mortem. He told the jury he could not say for definite that Elizabeth had not killed herself without one. The jury agreed, and adjourned the inquest for a few hours.
Elizabeth had gallstones. Her stomach was entirely empty. Her heart, lungs and liver were in healthy condition.
She had a scalp wound, and bruised skull. The doctor did not think this was enough to cause death, and her brain was otherwise healthy. He told the inquest that if she’d been properly nourished, she could have expected to live another decade or more. Evidence was given about their income, their living conditions, and the jury was told that it appeared that Robert and his daughter were trying to starve Elizabeth to death to get rid of her.
The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter, and this committed both Robert and Young Elizabeth to trial.
They waited a long time. They’d just missed the summer assize, and there was not another until the end of February 1854. They waited for trial in jail.
At the start of every assize, the Grand Jury consulted the trial calendar, reading through the evidence. The Grand Jury decided which indictments should proceed to full trial, and which could be binned off.
The judge, Baron Alderson, drew the Grand Jury’s attention to the Parkers indictments, pointing out they were solely based on the coroner’s warrant, which he did not approve of. Now, at the risk of getting academic, Baron Alderson thought that magistrates were infinitely more qualified to indict people for murder than coroner’s juries, and lobbied to remove the right to indict from coroners. However, if you know anything about nineteenth-century magistrates, you’ll know their qualification was usually SOLELY inherited wealth. Please see my eventual thesis for more on me yelling about this at intricately-referenced length.
He said although Robert had an obligation to support his wife, Young Elizabeth (whose age was mistakenly given as fifteen when she was almost seventeen) had no obligation whatsoever. The judge said that although Young Elizabeth had been offered bail
“To tell a pauper she might be set at liberty on giving bail was like telling her she might get a good dinner at the London Tavern"
The Grand Jury duly threw those indictments out. The Parkers were free. Baron Alderson told them they were owed an apology and should apply to the county for compensation.
Baron Alderson made a good point, one I’ve discussed before. When someone is killed by an act of omission, how do you prove intent? When someone lets their spouse die because they’re poor, because the family is in want, how do you prove fault? How do you prove intent? Baron Alderson argued that, as Elizabeth was fully able to go and get aid from the Board of Guardians, Robert’s obligation to keep her fed and clothed was minimal.
Baron Alderson, of course, wouldn’t have known coercive control if it slapped him in the face, which it wouldn’t, because of his rank. Baron Alderson could not have imagined shame, or fear stopping him going to get his daily bread. Nobody was going to bruise his wrists, or threaten him.
Because, the other element of the case is violence. Elizabeth had become so emaciated and frail that she was no longer able to climb the stairs alone, but she was still lucid, ‘compos mentis’. Two days later, she was unable to speak, barely conscious, with a head injury. Whether Robert starved her to death on purpose or not, he treated her roughly, and allowed his daughter to beat her. Was this head injury accidental or deliberate? Was it enough to tip her from barely surviving to dying?
Elizabeth married Robert for security. Robert married Elizabeth in the hope she’d get some money out of her brother, and to act as mother to his child. Neither of them got what they wanted.
Young Elizabeth got a job making stays, and died of consumption in Kettering workhouse in 1860. Robert remained in Kettering, lodging where he could, and descending into vagrancy in old age. He died in the workhouse in 1877.
Elizabeth Parker
(1787-1854)