May half term is upon us, so there’s no murder next week. What a phrase to write! I’ve had an incredibly busy few weeks writing, presenting research and lecturing and I am TIRED and I need to lie in the garden and not think about murder for a bit. If such a thing is possible…
Last week, we had a murder that was not a murder. This week, we have not one but TWO murders that were also, not technically, murder. I’ve mentioned this case before, in the write-up of poor Ann Cosford, but my god, it goes deeper than I imagined.
Henry Garlick was born in Pattishall in Northamptonshire in 1847, and grew up there. It’s not clear how he met Martha Simmons, or where - she was born in Ringshall near Berkhamsted - but they married in London in 1867. They lived in Cold Higham, and in 1870 moved in Astcote, on the edge of Pattishall. Henry worked on the land, or at a local corn mill, depending on where needed labour.
Martha had a little boy in late 1869, but no other children. She was older than Henry, born somewhere between 1838 and 1845. She was not a healthy woman, and suffered from frightening heart palpitations, sweats and exhaustion.
Henry did not help. In fact, Henry actively hindered. He was a lazy man, and violent. He beat Martha regularly, despite her ill-health - she would hide at her neighbour, Rebecca Gudgeon’s house, when he was drunk. In September 1874, he threw a stone through their cottage window at her, and hit their little boy instead. The police were summoned, and Martha told them she was afraid that he would kill her one day. That day came sooner than expected.
At Christmas, Martha’s neighbour Robert Castle mentioned to his wife what a poor state the Garlicks lived in. The next day, Boxing Day, Maria Castle went to visit Martha. She found the woman in a parlous state, with no fire, no food and no clothing. All she had on was a thin dress, which hadn’t been changed for months and was covered in blood and filth. Her bed, made of straw, had collapsed in the middle. Robert Castle brought the frame downstairs and reinforced it with a barn door. There was no bedding in the house, so Maria made her up a bed with some old sacks, an old coat, a skirt and a dress, all unwearable.
She’d been to the infirmary two weeks earlier, and should have gone again but had fallen down the stairs. A doctor had been out and prescribed some medicine, but Henry would not fetch it. Martha had told the doctor that Henry drank all his earnings, and that she was ashamed to be seen when she was so filthy.
Henry, spurred by his neighbour’s, said he would go to Cardray’s mill to get some wages he was owed. He disappeared for six hours, and returned drunk, bloody, missing his hat and without money.
The following day, a message arrived from the mill saying Henry was owed no money - he’d only done two days work and taken his payment in flour. Maria, who did not leave her neighbour’s house, asked him why he had not sent for help. Henry said his mother and sister wouldn’t help, and he didn’t know Maria well enough to ask her.
Meanwhile, Martha was dying. A man was sent to fetch the doctor, but the doctor did not answer the door. Maria Castle made up some beef tea for Martha, which seemed to have been the first food the poor woman had eaten for days. She complained of being hungry and faint, before going white, sweating profusely and sinking into unconsciousness.
She died at 3am on 28th December.
The inquest was held the next day, and then adjourned to allow the doctor to do a postmortem. Poor Martha was suffering from advanced tuberculosis, and calcified heart valves. But she was also starving. There was no fat on any of her organs, no fat in her arms or legs. Her bowels were empty. The only food in her system was a few teaspoons of beef tea, which she’d taken a few hours before her death.
At the second inquest, Robert Castle testified that, when visiting the house, he had asked Henry why he had allowed his wife to suffer so and Henry swore at him, and said:
It’s nothing to do with you
George Cardray, owner of the local flour mill, testified that he had plenty of work for Henry to do - indeed, he’d expected him at work on Boxing Day, but Henry never turned up. He did see him on the 27th, when Henry begged some apples to feed his wife.
Another man, Thomas Folwell, testified that Henry had borrowed a shilling from him on Boxing Day night, so Henry could buy some coal. Henry drank it.
The jury retired to consider what sort of man Henry was, to allow his wife to die in such a manner. They had to decide whether his neglect of his wife made him culpable for her death.
They decided it did. A verdict of manslaughter was returned, and the jury publicly thanked Maria Castle for aiding the dying woman. Henry was arrested, but bailed. He waited for his trial in Astcote.
He stood trial on Saturday 6th March. No new evidence was offered, the same litany of destitution was relayed, but Henry got lucky with the judge. The judge said
The case is a painful one and the worst of it was the fact that the man spent his money in drink, but it would be straining the evidence to say that caused the death of the woman.
And so, he was acquitted.
But this was not the end of Henry Garlick making women’s lives a misery. Later in 1875, he married Elizabeth Douglas. Elizabeth, a few years older than Henry, had been widowed shortly before Martha’s death, and had six living sons aged between sixteen and one. She quickly became pregnant and they had a daughter in late 1876. Another child, Jacob, was born on 2nd or 3rd September 1879.
If Elizabeth had been hoping that Martha’s death had softened Henry, she was disappointed. He was horrifically abusive to his stepsons. Thomas Skerry, Elizabeth’s eldest son, moved away from home after his mother’s marriage. However, on a visit home to meet his new baby brother on 13th September 1879, he witnessed vile abuse. Henry lifted his younger brother (probably Harry Douglas, aged five) up by the hair and dropped him from a height. Then he attacked Elizabeth.
Thomas did not see the attack on his mother, only the aftermath. His brother George, aged fifteen, did see the attack - Elizabeth asked him to go and fetch a policeman, and Henry hit her across the room. George ran away in terror.
Elizabeth had given birth only ten days earlier. She never recovered from this attack, and died on 25th September, aged thirty-nine. Once again, an inquest was performed, and once again, the cause of death was tuberculosis. However, on this occasion, the jury did not think Henry had contributed to the death of his wife, and returned a natural causes verdict.
Thomas Skerry, however, was not about to let matters rest and summoned his stepfather to court, and he appeared a couple of weeks after Elizabeth’s death. Henry denied hitting his wife, denied touching her at all. However, George Garlick, his only child with Martha, told the court that his father often beat Elizabeth, and he had also witnessed the attack that led to her death.
The magistrates sent Henry to prison for six months, with hard labour. The children went to stay with a very grudging aunt - baby Jacob was dead by early November. Another of Elizabeth’s boys died early in 1880.
Henry moved to Fosters Booth. He was in prison again when the census was taken in 1881, serving a short sentence for public drunkenness. I cannot trace him after that, and can only hope that he never inflicted himself on another wife.
Martha Garlick
(1838-1875)
Elizabeth Garlick
(1841-1879)