The Marine
A complicated timeline
Christmas is coming, and that means this is the last Friday Murder of the year. There will be a roundup post in a couple of weeks, with every story I’ve covered in 2024, but otherwise, a REST!
Recently, I was asked (with my friend and fellow inquest-obsessive Helen Rutherford) to talk about local archives and their value in legal history. You can watch it here.
This week, I was going to write the story of a man who shot two people in Gorton, another story from 1883. But then it transpired that they’d both survived, so I went fishing in the press, and I found this horrific story from Hampshire… Sometimes killers die before they can be brought to justice. Sometimes killers die before their victims…
We’re in Hampshire, late 1883.
Charlotte Harding was born in Petersfield in Hampshire in 1831. Like many young women in Hampshire, she made her way to the ports and caught a sailor’s eye. By mid-1849, she was pregnant by Thomas Linley. Thomas was twelve or thirteen years older than Charlotte, probably from Hull and either in the army or navy. Their son was born in February 1850, and named after his father. It’s likely that Thomas was away when he was born. When the 1851 census was taken, Charlotte and her baby were lodging in a yard in Gosport. Charlotte may have been working as a prostitute. Thomas Linley died in Gosport in 1855. He never married Charlotte.
Charlotte’s next partner was also military. George Farmer was born in Bedfordshire in around 1832. He was a Royal Marine and based at Forton Barracks in Gosport. He married Charlotte in 1856, He was frequently at sea, including what appears to be service on HMY Victoria and Albert, and Charlotte remained at home in Gosport. She had a second son in 1857, but her older boy was raised elsewhere. She had no other children.
George’s distance was presumably a relief to Charlotte, because he was a vile bully of a man. While he was away, she supported herself by cleaning, and lodged in a single room with another few families in Leesland Road. When he was home, he drank excessively and beat Charlotte up.
In the 1870s, George left the Marines. For the first time in their marriage, they lived together permanently. They lived in Whites Place, and George worked as a general labourer. And he drank. And he kicked Charlotte about.
One might attribute some of this to adjusting to life on land, but things did not improve. George brought in very little money, drank most of it and refused to allow Charlotte enough cash for food. In late 1882, Charlotte asked her eldest son to come and see her. Thomas ran a pub in Portsea and was doing fairly well for himself. Charlotte told him how she had no money, and George treated her terribly. Thomas gave her some money, but did not see her again before she died.
Charlotte had some issue with her hands, probably a kind of arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome. She found it increasingly difficult to clean or use her hands for anything. The house became filthy, but George would not allow her to get any help to clean it. In September 1883, things came to a head. On Saturday 22nd, a neighbour heard George screaming at Charlotte. He was drunk. This neighbour, Eliza Taylor, went to the house and threatened to call the police, although George would not let her in.
Eliza left, but the abuse continued. The following day, she went to the house while George was out. She found Charlotte in bed, unable to walk. George, she said, had attacked her. She had been cooking a pork chop on the fire, and he had thrown the pan, fat and chop at her, burning her hands. Then he had chased her up the stairs, and struck her in the back and legs. She couldn’t feel her legs.
George came back, threatened to kill Eliza if she didn’t get out, so she left.
On Monday 24th, Charlotte did not appear at Eliza’s kitchen as she usually did. Eliza decided to overlook George’s threats and go and see her. George had left Eliza in bed with a bit of dry bed and a few winkles to last her the day. Eliza went and fetched a second neighbour, Mrs Perrin. They tried to get Charlotte out of bed, but she screamed dreadfully when she put weight on her legs. They sent for the workhouse relieving officer. George came home at several points, to verbally abuse and threaten the women, but he did not hurt them. At night, he slept downstairs, ignoring his wife.
The relieving officer was named Mr Pearman. He visited the house in the evening, and asked George whether his wife needed medical assistance.
George said she did not.
Charlotte shouted down the stairs that she did.
Mr Pearman gave George a medical order. The doctor visited the next day, and was horrified by the state of Charlotte, finding her too dirty to examine. He later claimed that both he and Mr Pearman had become ill after visiting the house. The doctor ordered that Charlotte be taken to the infirmary. The two women, Eliza and Mrs Perrin, helped Charlotte wash and dress. Once Charlotte was away from her husband, she told Mr Pearman what had happened to her. He arranged for the house to be fumigated.
On admission, it was found that Charlotte had awful bed sores, a nasty bruise on her leg and a fractured thigh. She was not expected to survive.
Meanwhile, George was going about his business as though nothing had happened, although the police were getting ready to arrest him. He was employed as a farm labourer, and on 9th October, was asked to fetch a cart of coals from the railway station in Gosport. The horse pulling the cart knocked into George’s head, and the impact knocked him out. He seemed to recover, finished his work and went to the pub. In the pub, he said he felt ill and had a little lie down. Then he left.
He was found unconcious the following morning in a field. He died about two hours later in Haslar hospital, most likely from a brain haemorrhage. He was buried at Clayhall Naval cemetery.
Charlotte remained in the infirmary at Alverstoke workhouse, slowly dying. She died around 30th October and the inquest was held quickly. The verdict was wilful murder against George Farmer, deceased.
George and Charlotte were the same age, 52, when they died. But the newspapers reported that George was fifty and Charlotte was sixty-four. Although it’s not uncommon for women’s ages to be wildly overstated, it also perhaps demonstrates how aged she appeared.
Charlotte was so afraid of her husband. She told her neighbours what he was like but begged them not to say anything so she didn’t get beaten harder. She had no money, no food. She had once cleaned houses for a living, but she lived in filth, her hands ruined by her work… because she was not allowed to ask for help. She bravely spoke up for herself only once when the relieving officer came to the house, but kept the truth about her injuries to herself until she was out.
The coroner praised Charlotte’s neighbours for their bravery in getting help for Charlotte, in going to the house regardless of George’s threats, and recognised that Charlotte would probably have died in her own filth otherwise… but Charlotte was brave too.
Charlotte’s death was the sort that was not usually labelled murder. She died weeks after her initial injury, probably from a lung infection. She had several other conditions which weakened her and could have been used to deflect a murder verdict. Her house was filthy, and she was in a deeply distressing state, but this could have been blamed on her. There was no concrete evidence that George had caused the thigh fracture: had he been alive, he could have said she fell.
But George was not alive. Charlotte’s inquest was a strange parody of a trial, a trial of a ghost. There was no risk of No True Bill, no risk of an assize judge throwing the indictment out in a huff. George was dead and buried and could be safely blamed.
A strange justice.
Charlotte Farmer
(1831-1883)