Murder and Manslaughter In Victorian Salford

By Martin Baggoley

Each of the book’s nineteen chapters examines in depth a crime committed against the backdrop of the Victorian age. Issues discussed include violence against women, which was a common feature of the time, youth knife crime, illegal abortions and changing attitudes towards mental health problems; one chapter looks at the murder of seven members of one family, which was followed by the killer’s suicide.

A crime of historic significance is also included. This gives details of the bombing of Salford Barracks in 1881 by Irish nationalists, which resulted in the death of a seven year old Salford boy. This proved to be the beginning of the country wide Fenian Dynamite Campaign, which lasted for four years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9780244557096

Book preview

Murder and Manslaughter In Victorian Salford

MURDER AND MANSLAUGHTER IN VICTORIAN SALFORD

By

Martin Baggoley

Copyright

Copyright © Martin Baggoley 2020

eBook Design by Rossendale Books:

www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN: 978-0-244-55709-6

From eccles grammar press

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All rights reserved, Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author. The author’s moral rights have been asserted.

The cover illustration is of the New Bailey Prison, which in 1845 was the scene of a brutal killing. Public domain image.

Dedication

This is for Derek, Eileen, Amanda and Mark

FOREWORD

Each of the nineteen chapters in the book examines in depth, a case of murder or manslaughter committed across Salford during the Victorian era. Issues discussed include the low status of women and their treatment at the hands of violent men, illegal abortions, youth gangs, the perennial problem of knife crime, changing attitudes towards mental illness and one chapter recalls the murder of an entire family.

The details of a crime of historic significance are also given and these concern the bombing of Salford Barracks in 1881 by Irish nationalists, which led to the death of a seven year old Salford boy. This proved to be the beginning of the nationwide Fenian Dynamite Campaign, which lasted for four years.

Eccles born Martin Baggoley is a retired probation officer who spent almost twenty years of his career working in Salford. He has a master’s degree in criminology and has written extensively on the history of crime and punishment for magazines in the UK and USA. He is also the author of ten books on murders committed mainly in the nineteenth century. He and his wife Claire have two adult children and live in Ramsbottom.

1   -   THE TRAGIC END OF A SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER.   1844

Thirty year old Alice Nolan worked as a reeler in the Adelphi mill of flax spinners Renshaw & Co and lodged in the house of John Kearsley in Cannon Street. She was a Primitive Methodist and had been a Sunday school teacher for many years. Originally from St Helens, Alice was an attractive and popular young woman.

In the summer of 1844 she was courting thirty-one year old Thomas Stew, a native of Nantwich in Cheshire, who was in lodgings on Queen Street. In the past he had been a carter but was now working as a navigator or ‘navvy’, in the construction of the area’s rapidly expanding railway network. He had a reputation of being a heavy drinker with a fiery temper, but Alice had accepted his proposal of marriage and those who knew him believed she was a positive and calming influence on him.

On the night of Saturday 6 July, Alice and Stew visited the home of their friends, Sarah Shepherd and her husband in Cook Street. The conversation turned to their wedding plans and it appeared to Sarah that Alice felt she was being rushed into marrying Stew, as he wanted the ceremony to take place in the very near future, but Alice told him she would prefer to wait six months. No angry words were exchanged and Stew stayed the night with the Shepherds and Alice returned to her lodgings.

At ten o’clock the next morning, Alice joined Stew at the Shepherds’ house and they appeared to still be on good terms, although Sarah heard Alice once again tell him she wanted to wait a few months before they were married. The couple remained with their friends all day except for a period of two hours, when they visited the home of Stew’s workmate, John Wilson and his wife on nearby Foundry Street. The Wilsons afterwards told the police that Alice and Stew appeared to be happy in each other’s company before they made their way back to Cook Street. Later, they called at Hugh Broadhurst’s beerhouse with the Shepherds for a few drinks, before returning to their friends’ home for dinner.

At six o’clock, Stew suddenly rose to his feet saying he was going out for a few minutes and would be back soon. In fact, he returned to the beerhouse and asked Hugh if he could borrow his razor. Hugh agreed and offered to boil some water, believing he wished to shave himself. However, Stew said that would not be necessary and promised to bring the razor back shortly. He rejoined Alice and the others until nine o’clock when the couple left together with no hint of what was to follow.

One hour later, Mary Barlow was making her way home along Rockcliffe Street and saw Alice staggering towards her, clutching at her throat. As they neared each other, Alice placed her hand on Mary’s shoulder and attempted to speak, but was unable to do so. She fell to the ground and Mary now saw blood pouring from a neck wound. Mary’s screams alerted Thomas Barber, who rushed to help. He made an unsuccessful attempt to stem the flow of blood with his handkerchief as he awaited the arrival of medical assistance.  However, nothing could be done for her and Alice died after a few minutes, her head cradled in Thomas Barber’s arms, without having uttered a word.

Meanwhile, Sarah Shepherd’s next door neighbour, Joseph Jones, who was looking out of his scullery window at the rear of Cook Street, watched Stew enter Sarah’s back yard. He came to a halt at the door to the privy, screamed out Here goes, here I’ll die as he slashed his throat with the razor. Stew staggered forward and fell through the back door on to her scullery floor and a distraught Sarah cried out Oh Tom, what have you done, where’s Alice? He made no reply and after emergency treatment, he was taken to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. The blood stained razor, Stew had borrowed from Hugh Broadhurst, was found in Sarah’s yard and handed to the police.

As news of the murder and attempted suicide spread, three witnesses came forward. It was a few minutes before ten o’clock when Ann Kershaw, standing at her front room window, looking out on to Briggs Street, had seen a man and woman who were clearly arguing, although she was unable to hear what was being said. She sent her son Henry to investigate and as he stepped out of the front door, he saw the man running away. The woman was unsteady as she walked off, clutching her throat and Henry noticed blood on the pavement where the couple had been standing.

The third witness was Thomas Uxley, who was walking along Briggs Street a little earlier. He had seen the couple and as he passed them he heard the man say Alice, we’ll be married to which the woman replied Not yet, not for six months. A few moments later he heard the woman scream Oh God, Tom.

None of the three witnesses could positively identify the man and woman but the descriptions given of their clothes and their positions on Briggs Street, suggested they were Alice and Stew. Of great significance was the fact that Thomas heard each refer to the other by name and the police were satisfied they were Stew and his victim.

The inquest into Alice’s death took place the next morning at the Rob Roy public house on Arlington Street before coroner William Rutter and the results of a post-mortem were given by surgeon Joseph Creighton. The deceased had suffered a neck wound eight inches long, her windpipe had been completely severed and the jugular vein and carotid artery were also badly damaged. She bled to death due to these injuries, which were without doubt, inflicted with the razor found in the Shepherds’ back yard.

Mr Creighton also treated Stew and confirmed his throat had been cut and the wound was self-inflicted. His windpipe was sewn back together and the major blood vessels were not damaged. Nevertheless, he remained in a serious condition and was kept under observation at the Infirmary for several weeks, before being transferred to Kirkdale House of Correction in Liverpool to await his trial at the assizes.

This eventually took place on 16 December and the crown case was extremely strong. There was nothing to suggest Stew was drunk at the time of the murder and it was claimed he became angry when Alice would not agree to marry him when he wanted and he might have concluded from her hesitancy that later, she would perhaps reject him totally. However, it was acknowledged that none of the prosecution witnesses could positively identify the man and woman seen on Briggs Street as the victim and accused and that was why, the jury was told, Thomas Uxley’s testimony was so crucial, as he had heard their names used.

Stew’s barrister, Mr James, opened the defence case by advising the jury that, as often happened, he had only been appointed to defend him earlier that morning and the evidence given by the crown witnesses, that he had just heard, was all he knew of the case. He did not put Stew on the stand and simply presented the jury with several possibilities. He suggested that Alice’s wound might have been self-inflicted or another individual other than his client could have been responsible. He also spoke of a possible suicide pact that had gone wrong and referred to recent press reports. The first of these concerned two lovers in London who poisoned themselves and died holding hands and a second example was given of two Scottish lovers who had drowned themselves by jumping into a river. It was at this point that the judge interrupted Mr James and observed, rather dryly, that it was unwise to believe everything one read in the newspapers.

Undeterred, Mr James continued by suggesting that if Stew was indeed responsible for Alice’s death, he was probably insane at the time. In support of this, he called his only witness, Thomas Chalmers. He was the surgeon at the Kirkdale House of Correction and had continued to treat the prisoner’s wound after his arrival there. He became so concerned at Stew’s deteriorating mental state that he certified him as being insane on 2 November, after it had become necessary to restrain him in a straitjacket. The judge asked the witness if he could state categorically that the accused was insane on 7 July, the day of the murder, but he could not and the jury was instructed to reject insanity as a defence.

In his summing up, the judge raised the absence of any identification evidence of the couple on Briggs Street and said it was a matter for the jury as to whether they believed the testimony of Thomas Uxley was sufficient to prove they were Stew and Alice. After retiring for thirty minutes, the jury returned with a guilty verdict. As Stew was being sentenced to death, his mother who was at the back of the court, began to scream uncontrollably and could still be heard after she was removed from the courtroom.

The nature of the crime was such that there was little support for a reprieve and on the eve of his execution, Stew made the following confession;

I Thomas Stew voluntarily make this statement to Mr Appleton, the chaplain. I courted Alice Nolan for a little more than four months. She was as decent and respectable a young woman as anyone would wish to keep company with and I thought we should have lived comfortably together. About a month before her death I made a promise to marry her but could not keep my word in consequence of getting into bad company and wasting all that I had. As therefore we could not live together on earth, I thought we might