to fulfil this pious hope, and Charley Peace stands out as the one
great personality among English criminals of the nineteenth century. In
Charley Peace alone is revived that good-humoured popularity which
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries fell to the lot of Claude
Duval, Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard. But Peace has one grievance
against posterity; he has endured one humiliation which these heroes
have been spared. His name has been omitted from the pages of the
"Dictionary of National Biography." From Duval, in the seventeenth,
down to the Mannings, Palmer, Arthur Orton, Morgan and Kelly, the
bushrangers, in the nineteenth century, many a criminal, far less
notable or individual than Charley Peace, finds his or her place in that
great record of the past achievements of our countrymen. Room has
been denied to perhaps the greatest and most naturally gifted criminal
England has produced, one whose character is all the more remarkable for
its modesty, its entire freedom from that vanity and vaingloriousness
so common among his class.
The only possible reason that can be suggested for so singular an
omission is the fact that in the strict order of alphabetical succession
the biography of Charles Peace would have followed immediately on that
of George Peabody. It may have been thought that the contrast was too
glaring, that even the exigencies of national biography had no right
to make the philanthropist Peabody rub shoulders with man's constant
enemy, Peace. To the memory of Peace these few pages can make but
poor amends for the supreme injustice, but, by giving a particular and
authentic account of his career, they may serve as material for
the correction of this grave omission should remorse overtake those
responsible for so undeserved a slur on one of the most unruly of
England's famous sons.
From the literary point of view Peace was unfortunate even in the hour
of his notoriety. In the very year of his trial and execution, the
Annual Register, seized with a fit of respectability from which it
has never recovered, announced that "the appetite for the strange and
marvellous" having considerably abated since the year 1757 when the
Register was first published, its "Chronicle," hitherto a rich mine of
extraordinary and sensational occurrences, would become henceforth a
mere diary of important events. Simultaneously with the curtailment
of its "Chronicle," it ceased to give those excellent summaries of
celebrated trials which for many years had been a feature of its
volumes. The question whether "the appetite for the strange and
marvellous" has abated in an appreciable degree with the passing of time
and is not perhaps keener than it ever was, is a debatable one. But
it is undeniable that the present volumes of the Annual Register have
fallen away dismally from the variety and human interest of their
predecessors. Of the trial and execution of Peace the volume for 1879
gives but the barest record.
Charles Peace was not born of criminal parents. His father, John
Peace, began work as a collier at Burton-on-Trent. Losing his leg in an
accident, he joined Wombwell's wild beast show and soon acquired some
reputation for his remarkable powers as a tamer of wild animals. About
this time Peace married at Rotherham the daughter of a surgeon in
the Navy. On the death of a favourite son to whom he had imparted
successfully the secrets of his wonderful control over wild beasts of
every kind, Mr. Peace gave up lion-taming and settled in Sheffield as a
shoemaker.
It was at Sheffield, in the county of Yorkshire, already famous in the
annals of crime as the county of John Nevison and Eugene Aram, that
Peace first saw the light. On May 14, 1832, there was born to John Peace
in Sheffield a son, Charles, the youngest of his family of four. When he
grew to boyhood Charles was sent to two schools near Sheffield, where
he soon made himself remarkable, not as a scholar, but for his singular
aptitude in a variety of other employments such as making paper models,
taming cats, constructing a peep-show, and throwing up a heavy ball of
shot which he would catch in a leather socket fixed on to his forehead.
The course of many famous men's lives has been changed by what appeared
at the time to be an unhappy accident. Who knows what may have been the
effect on Charles Peace's subsequent career of an accident he met with
in 1846 at some rolling mills, in which he was employed? A piece of red
hot steel entered his leg just below the knee, and after eighteen months
spent in the Sheffield Infirmary he left it a cripple for life. About
this time Peace's father died. Peace and his family were fond of
commemorating events of this kind in suitable verse; the death of John
Peace was celebrated in the following lines:
"In peace he lived;
In peace he died;
Life was our desire,
But God denied."
Of the circumstances that first led Peace to the commission of crime we
know nothing. How far enforced idleness, bad companionship, according to
some accounts the influence of a criminally disposed mother, how far
his own daring and adventurous temper provoked him to robbery, cannot
be determined accurately. His first exploit was the stealing of an old
gentleman's gold watch, but he soon passed to greater things. On October
26, 1851, the house of a lady living in Sheffield was broken into and a
quantity of her property stolen. Some of it was found in the possession
of Peace, and he was arrested. Owing no doubt to a good character for
honesty given him by his late employer Peace was let off lightly with a
month's imprisonment.
After his release Peace would seem to have devoted himself for a time to
music, for which he had always a genuine passion. He taught himself to
play tunes on a violin with one string, and at entertainments which he
attended was described as "the modern Paganini." In later life when he
had attained to wealth and prosperity the violin and the harmonium were
a constant source of solace during long winter evenings in Greenwich and
Peckham. But playing a one-stringed violin at fairs and public-houses
could not be more than a relaxation to a man of Peace's active temper,
who had once tasted what many of those who have practised it, describe
as the fascination of that particular form of nocturnal adventure known
by the unsympathetic name of burglary. Among the exponents of the art
Peace was at this time known as a "portico-thief," that is to say one
who contrived to get himself on to the portico of a house and from that
point of vantage make his entrance into the premises. During the
year 1854 the houses of a number of well-to-do residents in and about
Sheffield were entered after this fashion, and much valuable property
stolen. Peace was arrested, and with him a girl with whom he was keeping
company, and his sister, Mary Ann, at that time Mrs. Neil. On October
20, 1854, Peace was sentenced at Doncaster Sessions to four years' penal
servitude, and the ladies who had been found in possession of the
stolen property to six months apiece. Mrs. Neil did not long survive her
misfortune. She would seem to have been married to a brutal and drunken
husband, whom Peace thrashed on more than one occasion for ill-treating
his sister. After one of these punishments Neil set a bulldog on to
Peace; but Peace caught the dog by the lower jaw and punched it into a
state of coma. The death in 1859 of the unhappy Mrs. Neil was lamented
in appropriate verse, probably the work of her brother:
"I was so long with pain opprest
That wore my strength away;
It made me long for endless rest
Which never can decay."
On coming out of prison in 1858, Peace resumed his fiddling, but it was
now no more than a musical accompaniment to burglary. This had become
the serious business of Peace's life, to be pursued, should necessity
arise, even to the peril of men's lives. His operations extended beyond
the bounds of his native town. The house of a lady living in Manchester
was broken into on the night of August 11, 1859, and a substantial booty
carried away. This was found the following day concealed in a hole in
a field. The police left it undisturbed and awaited the return of
the robber. When Peace and another man arrived to carry it away, the
officers sprang out on them. Peace, after nearly killing the officer
who was trying to arrest him, would have made his escape, had not other
policemen come to the rescue. For this crime Peace was sentenced to six
years' penal servitude, in spite of a loyal act of perjury on the part
of his aged mother, who came all the way from Sheffield to swear that he
had been with her there on the night of the crime.
He was released from prison again in 1864, and returned to Sheffield.
Things did not prosper with him there, and he went back to Manchester.
In 1866 he was caught in the act of burglary at a house in Lower
Broughton. He admitted that at the time he was fuddled with whisky;
otherwise his capture would have been more difficult and dangerous.
Usually a temperate man, Peace realised on this occasion the value
of sobriety even in burglary, and never after allowed intemperance to
interfere with his success. A sentence of eight years' penal servitude
at Manchester Assizes on December 3, 1866, emphasised this wholesome
lesson.
Whilst serving this sentence Peace emulated Jack Sheppard in a daring
attempt to escape from Wakefield prison. Being engaged on some repairs,
he smuggled a small ladder into his cell. With the help of a saw made
out of some tin, he cut a hole through the ceiling of the cell, and was
about to get out on to the roof when a warder came in. As the latter
attempted to seize the ladder Peace knocked him down, ran along the
wall of the prison, fell off on the inside owing to the looseness of the
bricks, slipped into the governor's house where he changed his clothes,
and there, for an hour and a half, waited for an opportunity to escape.
This was denied him, and he was recaptured in the governor's bedroom.
The prisons at Millbank, Chatham and Gibraltar were all visited by Peace
before his final release in 1872. At Chatham he is said to have taken
part in a mutiny and been flogged for his pains.
On his liberation from prison Peace rejoined his family in Sheffield.
He was now a husband and father. In 1859 he had taken to wife a widow
of the name of Hannah Ward. Mrs. Ward was already the mother of a
son, Willie. Shortly after her marriage with Peace she gave birth to a
daughter, and during his fourth term of imprisonment presented him with
a son. Peace never saw this child, who died before his release. But,
true to the family custom, on his return from prison the untimely death
of little "John Charles" was commemorated by the printing of a funeral
card in his honour, bearing the following sanguine verses:
"Farewell, my dear son, by us all beloved,
Thou art gone to dwell in the mansions above.
In the bosom of Jesus Who sits on the throne
Thou art anxiously waiting to welcome us home."
Whether from a desire not to disappoint little John Charles, for some
reason or other the next two or three years of Peace's career would seem
to have been spent in an endeavour to earn an honest living by picture
framing, a trade in which Peace, with that skill he displayed in
whatever he turned his hand to, was remarkably proficient. In Sheffield
his children attended the Sunday School. Though he never went to church
himself, he was an avowed believer in both God and the devil. As he
said, however, that he feared neither, no great reliance could be placed
on the restraining force of such a belief to a man of Peace's daring
spirit. There was only too good reason to fear that little John Charles'
period of waiting would be a prolonged one.
In 1875 Peace moved from Sheffield itself to the suburb of Darnall. Here
Peace made the acquaintance--a fatal acquaintance, as it turned out--of
a Mr. and Mrs. Dyson. Dyson was a civil engineer. He had spent some
years in America, where, in 1866, he married.
Toward the end of 1873 or the beginning of 1874, he came to England with
his wife, and obtained a post on the North Eastern Railway. He was a
tall man, over six feet in height, extremely thin, and gentlemanly in
his bearing. His engagement with the North Eastern Railway terminated
abruptly owing to Dyson's failing to appear at a station to which he had
been sent on duty.
It was believed at the time by those associated with Dyson that this
unlooked-for dereliction of duty had its cause in domestic trouble.
Since the year 1875, the year in which Peace came to Darnall, the
domestic peace of Mr. Dyson had been rudely disturbed by this same ugly
little picture-framer who lived a few doors away from the Dysons'
house. Peace had got to know the Dysons, first as a tradesman, then as
a friend. To what degree of intimacy he attained with Mrs. Dyson it is
difficult to determine. In that lies the mystery of the case Mrs. Dyson
is described as an attractive woman, "buxom and blooming"; she was
dark-haired, and about twenty-five years of age. In an interview with
the Vicar of Darnall a few days before his execution, Peace asserted
positively that Mrs. Dyson had been his mistress. Mrs. Dyson as
strenuously denied the fact. There was no question that on one occasion
Peace and Mrs. Dyson had been photographed together, that he had given
her a ring, and that he had been in the habit of going to music halls
and public-houses with Mrs. Dyson, who was a woman of intemperate
habits.
Peace had introduced Mrs. Dyson to his wife and daughter, and on one
occasion was said to have taken her to his mother's house, much to the
old lady's indignation. If there were not many instances of ugly men who
have been notably successful with women, one might doubt the likelihood
of Mrs. Dyson falling a victim to the charms of Charles Peace. But
Peace, for all his ugliness, could be wonderfully ingratiating when he
chose. According to Mrs. Dyson, Peace was a demon, "beyond the power of
even a Shakespeare to paint," who persecuted her with his attentions,
and, when he found them rejected, devoted all his malignant energies
to making the lives of her husband and herself unbearable. According to
Peace's story he was a slighted lover who had been treated by Mrs. Dyson
with contumely and ingratitude.
Whether to put a stop to his wife's intimacy with Peace, or to protect
himself against the latter's wanton persecution, sometime about the end
of June, 1876, Dyson threw over into the garden of Peace's house a card,
on which was written: "Charles Peace is requested not to interfere with
my family." On July 1 Peace met Mr. Dyson in the street, and tried to
trip him up. The same night he came up to Mrs. Dyson, who was talking
with some friends, and threatened in coarse and violent language to
blow out her brains and those of her husband. In consequence of
these incidents Mr. Dyson took out a summons against Peace, for whose
apprehension a warrant was issued. To avoid the consequences of this
last step Peace left Darnall for Hull, where he opened an eating-shop,
presided over by Mrs. Peace.
But he himself was not idle. From Hull he went to Manchester on
business, and in Manchester he committed his first murder. Entering the
grounds of a gentleman's home at Whalley Range, about midnight on
August 1, he was seen by two policemen. One of them, Constable Cock,
intercepted him as he was trying to escape.
Peace took out his revolver and warned Cock to stand back. The policeman
came on. Peace fired, but deliberately wide of him. Cock, undismayed,
drew out his truncheon, and made for the burglar. Peace, desperate,
determined not to be caught, fired again, this time fatally. Cock's
comrade heard the shots, but before he could reach the side of the dying
man, Peace had made off. He returned to Hull, and there learned shortly
after, to his intense relief, that two brothers, John and William
Habron, living near the scene of the murder, had been arrested and
charged with the killing of Constable Cock.
If the Dysons thought that they had seen the last of Peace, they were
soon to be convinced to the contrary. Peace had not forgotten his
friends at Darnall. By some means or other he was kept informed of all
their doings, and on one occasion was seen by Mrs. Dyson lurking near
her home. To get away from him the Dysons determined to leave Darnall.
They took a house at Banner Cross, another suburb of Sheffield, and
on October 29 moved into their new home. One of the first persons Mrs.
Dyson saw on arriving at Banner Cross was Peace himself. "You see,"
he said, "I am here to annoy you, and I'll annoy you wherever you go."
Later, Peace and a friend passed Mr. Dyson in the street. Peace took out
his revolver. "If he offers to come near me," said he, "I will make him
stand back." But Mr. Dyson took no notice of Peace and passed on. He had
another month to live.
Whatever the other motives of Peace may have been--unreasoning passion,
spite, jealousy, or revenge it must not be forgotten that Dyson, by
procuring a warrant against Peace, had driven him from his home in
Sheffield. This Peace resented bitterly. According to the statements of
many witnesses, he was at this time in a state of constant irritation
and excitement on the Dyson's account. He struck his daughter because
she alluded in a way he did not like to his relations with Mrs. Dyson.
Peace always believed in corporal chastisement as a means of keeping
order at home. Pleasant and entertaining as he could be, he was feared.
It was very dangerous to incur his resentment. "Be sure," said his wife,
"you do nothing to offend our Charley, or you will suffer for it." Dyson
beyond a doubt had offended "our Charley." But for the moment Peace was
interested more immediately in the fate of John and William Habron,
who were about to stand their trial for the murder of Constable Cock at
Whalley Range.
The trial commenced at the Manchester Assizes before Mr. Justice (now
Lord) Lindley on Monday, November 27. John Habron was acquitted.
The case against William Habron depended to a great extent on the fact
that he, as well as his brother, had been heard to threaten to "do for"
the murdered man, to shoot the "little bobby." Cock was a zealous young
officer of twenty-three years of age, rather too eager perhaps in
the discharge of his duty. In July of 1876 he had taken out summonses
against John and William Habron, young fellows who had been several
years in the employment of a nurseryman in Whalley Range, for being
drunk and disorderly. On July 27 William was fined five shillings,
and on August 1, the day of Cock's murder, John had been fined half
a sovereign. Between these two dates the Habrons had been heard to
threaten to "do for" Cock if he were not more careful. Other facts
relied upon by the prosecution were that William Habron had inquired
from a gunsmith the price of some cartridges a day or two before the
murder; that two cartridge percussion caps had been found in the pocket
of a waistcoat given to William Habron by his employer, who swore that
they could not have been there while it was in his possession; that the
other constable on duty with Cock stated that a man he had seen lurking
near the house about twelve o'clock on the night of the murder appeared
to be William Habron's age, height and complexion, and resembled him in
general appearance; and that the boot on Habron's left foot, which was
"wet and sludgy" at the time of his arrest, corresponded in certain
respects with the footprints of the murderer. The prisoner did not
help himself by an ineffective attempt to prove an alibi. The Judge was
clearly not impressed by the strength of the case for the prosecution.
He pointed out to the jury that neither the evidence of identification
nor that of the footprint went very far. As to the latter, what evidence
was there to show that it had been made on the night of the murder? If
it had been made the day before, then the defence had proved that it
could not have been Habron's. He called their attention to the facts
that Habron bore a good character, that, when arrested on the night of
the murder, he was in bed, and that no firearms had been traced to him.
In spite, however, of the summing-up the jury convicted William Habron,
but recommended him to mercy. The Judge without comment sentenced him to
death. The Manchester Guardian expressed its entire concurrence with the
verdict of the jury. "Few persons," it wrote, "will be found to dispute
the justice of the conclusions reached." However, a few days later
it opened its columns to a number of letters protesting against the
unsatisfactory nature of the conviction. On December 6 a meeting of
some forty gentlemen was held, at which it was resolved to petition Mr.
Cross, the Home Secretary, to reconsider the sentence. Two days before
the day of execution Habron was granted a respite, and later his
sentence commuted to one of penal servitude for life. And so a tragic
and irrevocable miscarriage of justice was happily averted.
Peace liked attending trials. The fact that in Habron's case he was the
real murderer would seem to have made him the more eager not to miss so
unique an experience. Accordingly he went from Hull to Manchester,
and was present in court during the two days that the trial lasted. No
sooner had he heard the innocent man condemned to death than he left
Manchester for Sheffield--now for all he knew a double murderer.
It is a question whether, on the night of November 28, Peace met Mrs.
Dyson at an inn in one of the suburbs of Sheffield. In any case, the
next morning, Wednesday, the 29th, to his mother's surprise Peace walked
into her house. He said that he had come to Sheffield for the fair.
The afternoon of that day Peace spent in a public-house at Ecclesall,
entertaining the customers by playing tunes on a poker suspended from
a piece of strong string, from which he made music by beating it with
a short stick. The musician was rewarded by drinks. It took very little
drink to excite Peace. There was dancing, the fun grew fast and furious,
as the strange musician beat out tune after tune on his fantastic
instrument.
At six o'clock the same evening a thin, grey-haired,
insignificant-looking man in an evident state of unusual excitement
called to see the Rev. Mr. Newman, Vicar of Ecclesall, near Banner
Cross. Some five weeks before, this insignificant-looking man had
visited Mr. Newman, and made certain statements in regard to the
character of a Mr. and Mrs. Dyson who had come to live in the parish.
The vicar had asked for proof of these statements. These proofs his
visitor now produced. They consisted of a number of calling cards and
photographs, some of them alleged to be in the handwriting of Mrs.
Dyson, and showing her intimacy with Peace. The man made what purported
to be a confession to Mr. Newman. Dyson, he said, had become jealous of
him, whereupon Peace had suggested to Mrs. Dyson that they should give
her husband something to be jealous about. Out of this proposal their
intimacy had sprung. Peace spoke of Mrs. Dyson in terms of forgiveness,
but his wrath against Dyson was extreme. He complained bitterly that
by taking proceedings against him, Dyson had driven him to break up his
home and become a fugitive in the land. He should follow the Dysons, he
said, wherever they might go; he believed that they were at that moment
intending to take further proceedings against him. As he left, Peace
said that he should not go and see the Dysons that night, but would call
on a friend of his, Gregory, who lived next door to them in Banner Cross
Terrace. It was now about a quarter to seven.
Peace went to Gregory's house, but his friend was not at home. The lure
of the Dysons was irresistible. A little after eight o'clock Peace was
watching the house from a passageway that led up to the backs of the
houses on the terrace. He saw Mrs. Dyson come out of the back door,
and go to an outhouse some few yards distant. He waited. As soon as
she opened the door to come out, Mrs. Dyson found herself confronted
by Peace, holding his revolver in his hand. "Speak," he said, "or I'll
fire." Mrs. Dyson in terror went back. In the meantime Dyson, hearing
the disturbance, came quickly into the yard. Peace made for the passage.
Dyson followed him. Peace fired once, the shot striking the lintel
of the passage doorway. Dyson undaunted, still pursued. Then Peace,
according to his custom, fired a second time, and Dyson fell, shot
through the temple. Mrs. Dyson, who had come into the yard again on
hearing the first shot, rushed to her husband's side, calling out:
"Murder! You villain! You have shot my husband." Two hours later Dyson
was dead.