This week, I did my BIG LECTURE. SO many people came! SO many people asked really good questions, that made me really think about methodology, ethics and what is knowable. The lecture is going to be made available on youtube, so I’ll share the link when I get it.
If you’re no longer on Twitter, you may enjoy this story of upper-middle-class Victorian bigamy. John Francis was a civil engineer, involved in constructing the Crystal Palace, various London railway stations, a bridge over the Tiber in Rome and a railway in India. I think being away from home probably helped cover up his addiction to marriage…
Today’s murder is the kind I’m usually keen to avoid, reading more like a cosy country house mystery than reality. Nevertheless, let us go to Bacton, in Suffolk, not far from Stowmarket.
The Reverend Edward Burton Barker was born in Bacton in 1774, the son of the vicar. In time, after collecting a theology degree at University College, Oxford, he also became the rector of Bacton. As rector, he lived in the rectory. This huge, 18thC house stands a mile south of the village. Until relatively recently, there was a large moat to the rear of the house, crossed by footbridges, a relic of some much older building.
Reverend Barker never married, and rattled around in this immense house by himself. However, from around 1808, he employed Maria Steggles as his housekeeper. Maria was nearly twenty years younger than the rector, and moved into the rectory when she was a teenager. Other servants came and went, but Maria never moved on.
At the time of the murder, several people lived in the house. As well as the rector and Maria, a younger servant, Sarah Percy, and a stableman named William Proctor also lived there. The adjoining farm employed several other men.
In early May 1853, someone broke into the buildings at the back of the house, sneaking over the moat, and stole some eggs and pork. The police did not find the culprit, but started including the rectory on their daily rounds, just in case. At 10:15am, on Sunday 8th May, the rector left the house with Susanfor divine service. William had already left the house in a rush, having awoken late, and did not return until 12:30pm.
As is common in these houses, nobody ever used the front door. Another door at the front of the house led to offices, unconnected to the main living spaces. The usual point of entry and exit was a glass side-door, which led into the kitchen. This was Maria’s domain. When she was alone in the house, she put a chain on this door to stop people wandering in.
At midday, the rector and servant came back and found a scene of devastation. The door was unchained. Maria lay dying in the kitchen, blood covered the house, and had been trodden through the kitchen. Maria’s clothes were in disarray - somebody had searched her. The house had been robbed of three pounds, a silk purse, and a large pistol. The robbery was not thorough - although he had broken open her bedroom door, the attacker had missed £40 packaged up her bedside drawer.
Oddly, the rector’s first thought was that Maria had committed suicide, presumably focusing on the blood.
Maria could not speak, and although a doctor was sent for, she died within the hour. Her injuries were profoundly brutal: she had been hit on the head with a hatchet which had cut her face, had her throat inexpertly cut, and then been kicked violently in the head. She appeared to have been disturbed while at prayer: her psalmbook was open on the table, alongside her spectacles. In the absence of forensics, Maria’s time of death was estimated by cooking: the meat was on the fire and burned, but Maria had not got so far as putting the pudding on to boil, so it was estimated that she was killed before 11am. No weapon was found, and nor was the stolen pistol.
A brief inquest was held the next day at the Bull Inn, which is still open. A magistrate’s hearing was held the following day, despite the lack of suspect. William attracted considerable suspicion - he was someone Maria would recognise and open the door to, and came to the house around half twelve, after the discovery. He also knew when she was alone in the house. But he was not charged.
Now, if this was an Agatha Christie, the murderer would be the rector, perhaps committed through a series of ingenious traps, a hatchet leaping from the wall when the pudding bowl was full. Perhaps William would be his accomplice, staging a robbery. Or maybe Sarah did it, employing her identical twin to aid the deception, jealous of Maria’s power in the household. The Reverend Barker would invite his detective friend to solve the murder and for once, the big old empty house would be full of life, and tense denouement.
But, nah.
Whoever killed Maria knew that she would be alone, and that there were likely to be valuables on site. Maria’s personal wealth was known in the village - she had accumulated many years of savings during her time at the rectory. Maria had opened the door to her killer, suggesting that she recognised him or believed he had legitimate business at the house on a Sunday. The rector and Home Office issued a reward notice, each promising £100 for information that led to the apprehension of the killer.
And Bacton held its breath.
Not for long. You see, this was not a wise killer. On the 11th and 12th of May, a young man named William Flack (or Flatt, depending on source) spent an immense amount of money in the Shoulder of Mutton at Long Brackland, sixteen miles west of Bacton. He also spent a small fortune on clothing, and when questioned by the police, could not give an accurate amount that he’d spent or account for where the money had come from. It transpired that young Flack, dressed in rags, had been in Bacton prior to the murder, and had called at the rectory looking for employment a few days beforehand. He also had a prior conviction for stealing lead from the church in the village. His clothing was found at his father’s house, covered in dark stains.
The police then arrested Ann and Eliza Flack, his mother and sister. Ann had burned the shirt he’d worn, and Eliza had attempted to sell a knife believed to have been stolen during the murder.
Efforts to find the murder weapon, draining both the rectory moat and another local watercourse, turned up nothing.
Flack was initially unconcerned at his arrest, but became increasingly antsy as the investigation progressed. His examination by the magistrates took place on 19th May, at the Bull in Bacton, in private. Sarah Percy recognised a distinctive coin taken from her room, that was found in a pawnshop in Bury St Edmunds: the shopkeeper refused to incriminate Flack in his evidence. However, Flack made a statement, claiming one Robert Moore had actually killed Maria. The police immediately fetched Robert, who came to see the magistrates of his own free will, furious, with a robust alibi. Ann and Eliza were remanded to prison, as was William. William’s brother John was also arrested, when he was found in possession of Maria’s own knife.
Proceedings continued for three days between the 2nd and 4th June, again in the Bull, and the magistrates called forty witnesses. The rector, who was in his eightieth year, sobbed on the point of hysteria when giving his evidence. The first revelation was that Ann Flack was Sarah Percy’s cousin. The second was that Maria herself had rejected William Flack’s application to work at the rectory, as he was such an ugly boy. Dozens of people had seen Flack around on the day of the murder, had lent him clothes, or seen him change clothes, had seen him with Sarah’s red purse, had heard him talk about how much he disliked Maria, had even heard him admit the murder when drunk in Bury St Edmunds.
William Flack was - of course - charged with murder. He appeared at the County Hall in Ipswich on 30th June to hear the evidence of his little brother, Charles. Charles stated that William came home on the day of the murder with bloody shoes, and washed them. He saw William with Sarah Percy’s purse, but his brother John later burned it. Charles, aged eleven, acknowledged that he had originally lied to the police about William being covered in blood from flaying a horse, and apologised. He told the magistrates that his father would beat him when he went home, punishment for telling the truth, so the magistrate arranged for him to be detained for his own protection. Eliza also gave additional evidence about the purse, and told the magistrate that she should like to go to Australia, alluding to being transported - her eldest brother, Abraham, was transported for seven years in 1844 and never returned.
William Flack was tried at the Suffolk summer assizes, on 28th July 1853. A mass of physical and circumstantial evidence was against him, including evidence of blood on his clothes, prints from his boots (mended in a particular way by a particular shoemaker), evidence of him handling stolen goods from the murder scene, his new-found wealth, and the endless tangle of contradicting evidence from his family. He pleaded not guilty, and his defence did their best, but it made no difference. The jury took twenty minutes to find him guilty.
The judge passed the death sentence, saying
“Happily, the unfortunate woman was found in the exercise of religion, at least so far as she was then able of performing it. Almost at that very moment that you hurried her out of the world, you gave her no opportunity of repentance and prayer; but to you, happily, will be allowed a longer interval.”
Nothing so virtuous as being slain at prayer. William said nothing, but smiled when he left the dock. He met his family for the last time on the 16th August, and confessed on the same day
“It was me that did the murder. There was nobody else with me. All I said about Moore was false. When I got to the rectory, the door was fastened. I knocked. Mrs Steggles came to the door. I knocked her down when she reached the kitchen. I struck her with my fist. She fell. When down, she cried violently. I then took a small case-knife belonging to my folks. My little brother called it his. I cut her throat with it, I think, in two places - at least I cut twice. I then knocked her on the head with my boots. […] I kicked her seven or eight times. I knew she was not quite dead when I left her and went upstairs. […] I went to the kitchen and looked at deceased. She was lying on her back. I did not see her move, but I could see she was breathing. I then kicked her two or three times more in the head.”
The following day, William Flack was executed at 8am, publicly, on top of the gateway of Ipswich prison. He died cleanly. He was twenty years old.
Bacton was a strange place, and the magistrate’s court, though thorough, was also strange. The magistrates refused to allow in press or representation for the witnesses. Nevertheless, a verbatim report appeared in the paper. When it came to the case of Ann, Eliza and John Flack, the police threatened the women in court, upsetting the magistrates in the process. The entire process was slapdash, but the evidence was eerie: virtually a whole village summoned to court, all interrelated and connected, blithely ignoring the evidence of murder in their midst.
One thing that was referenced repeatedly in this case was the poor state of literacy in Bacton. None of the working-class witnesses or William Flack could read or write. Several had no idea of their own age. Some witnesses did not understand what being sworn on oath meant, and William stated that he didn’t know who God was.
William came from an incredibly poor family that saw larceny as a means to an end. His father had spent several years in prison for theft, and his eldest brother had been transported for it. Concealing and moving on stolen goods were a normal part of life, and the familial omertà around William’s terrible crime reminds me of Peppermint Billy’s upbringing.
What is somewhat lost in the endlessness of the magistrate’s hearings, is the simple brutality of Maria’s death. William’s account is bad enough, but Maria had multiple skull and facial fractures: these kicks were intended to silence and kill. Her wig and cap had both been torn off. The knife used to cut her throat was inadequate for the task and made a ragged job. When William couldn’t find her valuables during his ten minute robbery, he returned to the dying woman, and kicked her some more. There is a terrible savagery to this murder, one that seems to go far beyond avarice as a motive.
In the days before the murder, Maria had refused William a job. She may have been a servant, but she was the power in the rectory, and therefore a power in the weird, stunted, inbred, uneducated village. It’s impossible to know whether William was even aware he was acting with vengeance when he killed her, but the ferocity of the crime suggests rage and frustration: Maria was not merely in his way.
Edward Barker appears to have been broken by Maria’s death. He retired as rector soon after, and was replaced by another member of his family. He died in 1858.
Maria Steggles
(1791-1853)