I know I said they’d be fortnightly, but this one is short. A little extra treat, if you think of this newsletter as a treat, because this case kept me awake last night.
There’s no method to how I choose the cases I write about, no great plan, no methodology (…don’t tell my supervisors…). They just have to catch my eye, when I’m reading through newspapers or court lists. This one caught my eye because of the age of the perpetrator and the sentence, and what I found was a real Peaky Blinder, with all the savagery that entailed.
As you may have guessed, we’re in Birmingham, 1898.
Emily Pimm was known as Pem to her friends. She was born in Birmingham in 1880, the first child of Frederick and Emily Pimm. Her father was a gun polisher, at a time when virtually everyone in Birmingham made bits of guns or buttons, jewels or bikes. They lived off Great Russell Street, a road that ran from Tower Street behind St George’s church, through to Bridge Street West. Their home was a tiny courtyard house with Frederick’s mother, Sarah. Frederick had dabbled in crime as a youth, but seems to have settled down when he married.
Pem’s mum died in childbirth in 1889, aged twenty-eight. Frederick never remarried, and raised - dragged - his children up with the aid of his mother. Sarah Pimm died in 1894. The family moved to a court on Hospital Street after her death.
James - Jim - Harper was born in 1880 in Duddeston. His parents relationship ended in the 1890s (either by death or desertion: I am unsure which), and his father (a bricklayer) moved to George Street with his new partner before 1896. Jim joined the local gang, known as “Peaky Perishers”. They were identified by their outfits: bell bottomed trousers, pearl-buttoned shirts, a peaked cap, and a colourful handkerchief worn at the neck. They wore a peculiar hair style, very short except for a pronounced kiss-curl at the front, that was not covered by their caps. Their girlfriends wore similar outfits, and wore their hair in a thick fringe, topped with elaborate hats.
Pem and Jim started dating in approximately 1897. Pem’s younger brother was also a Peaky, but they all lived in the same area. They were both in work full time, both brass polishers, and spent their nights walking out in Summer Lane. The Peaky Perishers were a violent lot, and entertained themselves by being threatening and having fights. The Birmingham Daily Mail would have you believe that their chief entertainment was beating up their girlfriends. One correspondant interviewed a ‘Peaky Moll’, who told him girls wore their black eyes as a badge of honour, that being pinched and smacked about was part of their love language. It’s difficult to know how much of this was hyperbole, but one thing is certain: the Peakys were jealous and possessive of their girlfriends. Fighting over girls was common, and these fights often landed people in ‘orspital’. There was a code of silence around these fights: grassing up your mates was not an option, even when they put you in hospital. And this culture of omertà had tragic consequences for Pem.
Pem got pregnant in 1898, although it’s not clear of the exact timeline. In August of that year, she broke things off with Jim. He took it badly, and when he found out that Pem was seeing Charlie Jones, things got worse. In late October, Pem went out to get her dad a jug of beer. Jim was hanging about in the courtyard, hoping to meet her, and started hitting her when she came out. Pem smacked him across the head with the beer jug, cutting his head open.
Pem stayed at home as much as she could, but she could only meet up with Charlie in the streets - there was no privacy at home - and even in the warrens around Summer Lane, there was alway the risk of bumping into Jim. On November 11th, she was out with her friend Minnie in Summer Lane, and her friend spotted Jim. Pem legged it down Moorsom Street (the part that is now Chilwell Croft) but Jim caught her, and hit her, pushing her to the ground. Pem hit her head on the kerbstone. Minnie tried to stop him, perhaps concerned for the baby, but Jim punched Minnie in the face, and kicked Pem in the head with both feet, ‘like a football’.
Then he stamped on her face. Three times.
This was not a secretive event: quite the crowd gathered. Pem lay unconscious on the ground and someone shouted that he’d killed her. And James ran away.
Pem regained consciousness, although she was bleeding from her nose and ear. She said she thought he’d burst her ear drum. She managed to walk home, although she fainted on the way. Her father was concerned about her, although he didn’t know she’d been assaulted. He sent her to the hospital the next day. Pem didn’t tell the doctor what had happened. Instead, she claimed she’d fallen against the fireplace fender. The doctors sent her home, and she bumped into Jim. Jim said
“I’m sorry for what I done, but you shouldn’t have thrown that jug.”
He asked her to walk out with him the following day, threatening to do worse if she didn’t walk out with him. Pem agreed, so he’d leave her alone, and went home.
She died in her sleep early on Sunday morning.
When her father found her body, the full story emerged. All the neighbours knew that Jim had kicked the crap out of Pem on Friday night, and nobody had told her father. But now Pem was dead, everyone had something to say. The inquest was held on the 16th November in the Victoria Courts, and it took four hours to hear all the evidence.
Pem had been to the hospital, but the doctors had entirely failed to pick up the fracture of her skull above her left ear. Xray technology was in its infancy, and evidently not employed. Pem died from a blood clot on her brain.
A juryman said it was surprising that the fracture was not detected at the hospital, and the coroner pointed out that Pem hadn’t told them she’d been assaulted. A verdict of manslaughter was returned against Jim, confirmed by the magistrates the following day.
A month after Pem’s death, on 13th December 1898, James Harper stood trial for manslaughter at Birmingham Assize. I cannot find a full account of the trial, but it appears that he had a good character reference from work, an industrious and steady young man. Jim denied kicking Pem, saying he only hit her, with the inference being that she’d died after hitting her head on the pavement. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and the judge said
“It is a most brutal and awful offence to kick a prostrate woman. I am afraid there is prevalent in Birmingham, and elsewhere, a disposition to treat women as the prisoner treated this poor creature. Though I am unwilling to take away so many years of the prisoner’s life that he would never be able to get over it, still I cannot pass a lighter sentence than six years penal servitude”
Jim served his sentence at Portland prison in Dorset. He was released in June 1903, initially into the rehabilitating arms of the London Church Army Society. He appears to have headed back to Birmingham, where he married in 1908 and lived under the name George Harper. He went to war in 1914, and was killed in action at Ypres on 30th July 1915. His body was not recovered.
From murderer to war hero.
A real life Peaky Blinder.
Jim had a tattoo on his arm. It was transcribed in the prison records as P.E.M.P.J.N TRUE LOVE. I am fairly sure it was supposed to read PEM PIMM. And this is what stuck in my head last night: he spent the seventeen remaining years of his life with his victim’s name on his arm, a declaration of love towards the woman he trampled to death.
The woman who was so scared of him, as he stalked her, with her name on his arm, that she didn’t dare tell the doctor what had happened to her.
The woman who was probably pregnant with his child, who had fallen in with a bad crowd, but would have had the chance to marry, to straighten out, to find a better life.
Jim got a second chance, with a lenient prison sentence, so he was still barely twenty-three when he was released.
Pem did not.
Emily Pimm
(1880-1898)
Emily’s unborn baby died with her.