the roadway. He stood there hesitating a moment, until the cries of Mrs.
Dyson warned him of his danger. He crossed the road, climbed a wall,
and made his way back to Sheffield. There he saw his mother and brother,
told them that he had shot Mr. Dyson, and bade them a hasty good-bye.
He then walked to Attercliffe Railway Station, and took a ticket for
Beverley. Something suspicious in the manner of the booking-clerk made
him change his place of destination. Instead of going to Beverley that
night he got out of the train at Normanton and went on to York. He spent
the remainder of the night in the station yard. He took the first train
in the morning for Beverley, and from there travelled via Collingham
to Hull. He went straight to the eating-house kept by his wife, and
demanded some dinner. He had hardly commenced to eat it when he heard
two detectives come into the front shop and ask his wife if a man called
Charles Peace was lodging with her. Mrs. Peace said that that was
her husband's name, but that she had not seen him for two months. The
detectives proposed to search the house. Some customers in the shop told
them that if they had any business with Mrs. Peace, they ought to go
round to the side door. The polite susceptibility of these customers
gave Peace time to slip up to a back room, get out on to an adjoining
roof, and hide behind a chimney stack, where he remained until the
detectives had finished an exhaustive search. So importunate were the
officers in Hull that once again during the day Peace had to repeat this
experience. For some three weeks, however, he contrived to remain in
Hull. He shaved the grey beard he was wearing at the time of Dyson's
murder, dyed his hair, put on a pair of spectacles, and for the first
time made use of his singular power of contorting his features in such
a way as to change altogether the character of his face. But the hue and
cry after him was unremitting. There was a price of L100 on his head,
and the following description of him was circulated by the police:
"Charles Peace wanted for murder on the night of the 29th inst. He is
thin and slightly built, from fifty-five to sixty years of age. Five
feet four inches or five feet high; grey (nearly white) hair, beard and
whiskers. He lacks use of three fingers of left hand, walks with his
legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly as though his
tongue were too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster. He is
a picture-frame maker. He occasionally cleans and repairs clocks and
watches and sometimes deals in oleographs, engravings and pictures. He
has been in penal servitude for burglary in Manchester. He has lived in
Manchester, Salford, and Liverpool and Hull."
This description was altered later and Peace's age given as forty-six.
As a matter of fact he was only forty-four at this time, but he looked
very much older. Peace had lost one of his fingers. He said that it had
been shot off by a man with whom he had quarrelled, but it was believed
to be more likely that he had himself shot it off accidentally in
handling one of his revolvers. It was to conceal this obvious means of
identification that Peace made himself the false arm which he was in the
habit of wearing. This was of gutta percha, with a hole down the middle
of it into which he passed his arm; at the end was a steel plate to
which was fixed a hook; by means of this hook Peace could wield a fork
and do other dexterous feats.
Marked man as he was, Peace felt it dangerous to stay longer in Hull
than he could help. During the closing days of the year 1876 and the
beginning of 1877, Peace was perpetually on the move. He left Hull for
Doncaster, and from there travelled to London. On arriving at King's
Cross he took the underground railway to Paddington, and from there a
train to Bristol. At the beginning of January he left Bristol for Bath,
and from Bath, in the company of a sergeant of police, travelled by
way of Didcot to Oxford. The officer had in his custody a young woman
charged with stealing L40. Peace and the sergeant discussed the case
during the journey. "He seemed a smart chap," said Peace in relating
the circumstances, "but not smart enough to know me." From Oxford he
went to Birmingham, where he stayed four or five days, then a week in
Derby, and on January 9th he arrived in Nottingham.
Here Peace found a convenient lodging at the house of one, Mrs. Adamson,
a lady who received stolen goods and on occasion indicated or organised
suitable opportunities for acquiring them.
She lived in a low part of the town known as the Marsh. It was at
her house that Peace met the woman who was to become his mistress and
subsequently betray his identity to the police. Her maiden name was
Susan Gray.
She was at this time about thirty-five years of age, described as
"taking" in appearance, of a fair complexion, and rather well educated.
She had led a somewhat chequered married life with a gentleman named
Bailey, from whom she continued in receipt of a weekly allowance until
she passed under the protection of Peace. Her first meeting with her
future lover took place on the occasion of Peace inviting Mrs. Adamson
to dispose of a box of cigars for him, which that good woman did at a
charge of something like thirty per cent. At first Peace gave himself
out to Mrs. Bailey as a hawker, but before long he openly acknowledged
his real character as an accomplished burglar. With characteristic
insistence Peace declared his passion for Mrs. Bailey by threatening
to shoot her if she did not become his. Anxious friends sent for her to
soothe the distracted man. Peace had been drowning care with the help
of Irish whiskey. He asked "his pet" if she were not glad to see him, to
which the lady replied with possible sarcasm: "Oh, particularly, very,
I like you so much." Next day Peace apologised for his rude behaviour
of the previous evening, and so melted the heart of Mrs. Bailey that she
consented to become his mistress, and from that moment discarding the
name of Bailey is known to history as Mrs. Thompson.
Life in Nottingham was varied pleasantly by burglaries carried out with
the help of information supplied by Mrs. Adamson. In the June of 1877
Peace was nearly detected in stealing, at the request of that worthy,
some blankets, but by flourishing his revolver he contrived to get
away, and, soon after, returned for a season to Hull. Here this hunted
murderer, with L100 reward on his head, took rooms for Mrs. Thompson and
himself at the house of a sergeant of police. One day Mrs. Peace, who
was still keeping her shop in Hull, received a pencilled note saying, "I
am waiting to see you just up Anlaby Road." She and her stepson, Willie
Ward, went to the appointed spot, and there to their astonishment stood
her husband, a distinguished figure in black coat and trousers, top
hat, velvet waistcoat, with stick, kid gloves, and a pretty little fox
terrier by his side. Peace told them of his whereabouts in the town, but
did not disclose to them the fact that his mistress was there also. To
the police sergeant with whom he lodged, Peace described himself as
an agent. But a number of sensational and successful burglaries at
the houses of Town Councillors and other well-to-do citizens of Hull
revealed the presence in their midst of no ordinary robber. Peace had
some narrow escapes, but with the help of his revolver, and on one
occasion the pusillanimity of a policeman, he succeeded in getting away
in safety. The bills offering a reward for his capture were still to
be seen in the shop windows of Hull, so after a brief but brilliant
adventure Peace and Mrs. Thompson returned to Nottingham.
Here, as the result of further successful exploits, Peace found a reward
of L50 offered for his capture. On one occasion the detectives came
into the room where Peace and his mistress were in bed. After politely
expressing his surprise at seeing "Mrs. Bailey" in such a situation,
one of the officers asked Peace his name. He gave it as John Ward, and
described himself as a hawker of spectacles. He refused to get up and
dress in the presence of the detectives who were obliging enough to go
downstairs and wait his convenience. Peace seized the opportunity to
slip out of the house and get away to another part of the town. From
there he sent a note to Mrs. Thompson insisting on her joining him.
He soon after left Nottingham, paid another brief visit to Hull, but
finding that his wife's shop was still frequented by the police, whom he
designated freely as "a lot of fools," determined to quit the North for
good and begin life afresh in the ampler and safer field of London.
II
PEACE IN LONDON
Peace's career in London extended over nearly two years, but they were
years of copious achievement. In that comparatively short space of time,
by the exercise of that art, to his natural gifts for which he had now
added the wholesome tonic of experience, Peace passed from a poor and
obscure lodging in a slum in Lambeth to the state and opulence of a
comfortable suburban residence in Peckham. These were the halcyon days
of Peace's enterprise in life. From No. 25 Stangate Street, Lambeth, the
dealer in musical instruments, as Peace now described himself, sallied
forth night after night, and in Camberwell and other parts of South
London reaped the reward of skill and vigilance in entering other
people's houses and carrying off their property. Though in the beginning
there appeared to be but few musical instruments in Stangate Street to
justify his reputed business, "Mr. Thompson," as he now called himself,
explained that he was not wholly dependent on his business, as Mrs.
Thompson "had money."
So successful did the business prove that at the Christmas of 1877 Peace
invited his daughter and her betrothed to come from Hull and spend
the festive season with him. This, in spite of the presence of Mrs.
Thompson, they consented to do. Peace, in a top hat and grey ulster,
showed them the sights of London, always inquiring politely of a
policeman if he found himself in any difficulty. At the end of the visit
Peace gave his consent to his daughter's marriage with Mr. Bolsover,
and before parting gave the young couple some excellent advice. For more
reasons than one Peace was anxious to unite under the same roof Mrs.
Peace and Mrs. Thompson. Things still prospering, Peace found himself
able to remove from Lambeth to Crane Court, Greenwich, and before long
to take a couple of adjoining houses in Billingsgate Street in the
same district. These he furnished in style. In one he lived with Mrs.
Thompson, while Mrs. Peace and her son, Willie, were persuaded after
some difficulty to leave Hull and come to London to dwell in the other.
But Greenwich was not to the taste of Mrs. Thompson. To gratify her
wish, Peace, some time in May, 1877, removed the whole party to a house,
No. 5, East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham. He paid thirty pounds a year
for it, and obtained permission to build a stable for his pony and trap.
When asked for his references, Peace replied by inviting the agent to
dine with him at his house in Greenwich, a proceeding that seems to have
removed all doubt from the agent's mind as to the desirability of the
tenant.
This now famous house in Peckham was of the ordinary type of suburban
villa, with basement, ground floor, and one above; there were steps up
to the front door, and a bow window to the front sitting-room. A garden
at the back of the house ran down to the Chatham and Dover railway line.
It was by an entrance at the back that Peace drove his horse and trap
into the stable which he had erected in the garden. Though all living
in the same house, Mrs. Peace, who passed as Mrs. Ward, and her son,
Willie, inhabited the basement, while Peace and Mrs. Thompson occupied
the best rooms on the ground floor. The house was fitted with Venetian
blinds. In the drawing-room stood a good walnut suite of furniture; a
Turkey carpet, gilded mirrors, a piano, an inlaid Spanish guitar, and,
by the side of an elegant table, the beaded slippers of the good
master of the house completed the elegance of the apartment. Everything
confirmed Mr. Thompson's description of himself as a gentleman of
independent means with a taste for scientific inventions. In association
with a person of the name of Brion, Peace did, as a fact, patent an
invention for raising sunken vessels, and it is said that in pursuing
their project, the two men had obtained an interview with Mr. Plimsoll
at the House of Commons. In any case, the Patent Gazette records the
following grant:
"2635 Henry Fersey Brion, 22 Philip Road, Peckham Rye, London, S.E., and
John Thompson, 5 East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham Rye, London, S.E.,
for an invention for raising sunken vessels by the displacement of water
within the vessels by air and gases."
At the time of his final capture Peace was engaged on other inventions,
among them a smoke helmet for firemen, an improved brush for washing
railway carriages, and a form of hydraulic tank. To the anxious
policeman who, seeing a light in Mr. Thompson's house in the small hours
of the morning, rang the bell to warn the old gentleman of the possible
presence of burglars, this business of scientific inventions was
sufficient explanation.
Socially Mr. Thompson became quite a figure in the neighbourhood. He
attended regularly the Sunday evening services at the parish church, and
it must have been a matter of anxious concern to dear Mr. Thompson that
during his stay in Peckham the vicarage was broken into by a burglar and
an unsuccessful attempt made to steal the communion plate which was kept
there.
Mr. Thompson was generous in giving and punctual in paying. He had his
eccentricities. His love of birds and animals was remarkable. Cats,
dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, canaries, parrots and cockatoos all found
hospitality under his roof. It was certainly eccentricity in Mr.
Thompson that he should wear different coloured wigs; and that his dark
complexion should suggest the use of walnut juice. His love of music was
evinced by the number of violins, banjoes, guitars, and other musical
instruments that adorned his drawing-room. Tea and music formed the
staple of the evening entertainments which Mr. and Mrs. Thompson would
give occasionally to friendly neighbours. Not that the pleasures of
conversation were neglected wholly in favour of art. The host was
a voluble and animated talker, his face and body illustrating
by appropriate twists and turns the force of his comments. The
Russo-Turkish war, then raging, was a favourite theme of Mr. Thompson's.
He asked, as we are still asking, what Christianity and civilisation
mean by countenancing the horrors of war. He considered the British
Government in the highest degree guilty in supporting the cruel Turks, a
people whose sobriety seemed to him to be their only virtue, against
the Christian Russians. He was confident that our Ministers would be
punished for opposing the only Power which had shown any sympathy with
suffering races. About ten o'clock Mr. Thompson, whose health, he said,
could not stand late hours, would bid his guests good night, and by
half-past ten the front door of No. 5, East Terrace, Evelina Road, would
be locked and bolted, and the house plunged in darkness.
Not that it must be supposed that family life at No. 5, East Terrace,
was without its jars. These were due chiefly to the drunken habits of
Mrs. Thompson. Peace was willing to overlook his mistress' failing
as long as it was confined to the house. But Mrs. Thompson had an
unfortunate habit of slipping out in an intoxicated condition, and
chattering with the neighbours. As she was the repository of many a
dangerous secret the inconvenience of her habit was serious. Peace was
not the man to hesitate in the face of danger. On these occasions
Mrs. Thompson was followed by Peace or his wife, brought back home and
soundly beaten. To Hannah Peace there must have been some satisfaction
in spying on her successful rival, for, in her own words, Peace never
refused his mistress anything; he did not care what she cost him in
dress; "she could swim in gold if she liked." Mrs. Thompson herself
admitted that with the exception of such punishment as she brought on
herself by her inebriety, Peace was always fond of her, and treated her
with great kindness. It was she to whom he would show with pride the
proceeds of his nightly labours, to whom he would look for a smile when
he returned home from his expeditions, haggard and exhausted
Through all dangers and difficulties the master was busy in the practice
of his art. Night after night, with few intervals of repose, he would
sally forth on a plundering adventure. If the job was a distant one, he
would take his pony and trap. Peace was devoted to his pony, Tommy,
and great was his grief when at the end of six months' devotion to duty
Tommy died after a few days' sickness, during which his master attended
him with unremitting care. Tommy had been bought in Greenwich for
fourteen guineas, part of a sum of two hundred and fifty pounds which
Peace netted from a rich haul of silver and bank-notes taken from a
house in Denmark Hill. Besides the pony and trap, Peace would take with
him on these expeditions a violin case containing his tools; at other
times they would be stuffed into odd pockets made for the purpose in
his trousers. These tools consisted of ten in all--a skeleton key, two
pick-locks, a centre-bit, gimlet, gouge, chisel, vice jemmy and knife; a
portable ladder, a revolver and life preserver completed his equipment.
The range of Peace's activities extended as far as Southampton,
Portsmouth and Southsea; but the bulk of his work was done in
Blackheath, Streatham, Denmark Hill, and other suburbs of South London.
Many dramatic stories are told of his exploits, but they rest for the
most part on slender foundation. On one occasion, in getting on to a
portico, he fell, and was impaled on some railings, fortunately in no
vital part. His career as a burglar in London lasted from the beginning
of the year 1877 until October, 1878. During that time this wanted man,
under the very noses of the police, exercised with complete success his
art as a burglar, working alone, depending wholly on his own mental and
physical gifts, disposing in absolute secrecy of the proceeds of his
work, and living openly the life of a respectable and industrious old
gentleman.
All the while the police were busily seeking Charles Peace, the murderer
of Mr. Dyson. Once or twice they came near to capturing him. On one
occasion a detective who had known Peace in Yorkshire met him in
Farringdon Road, and pursued him up the steps of Holborn Viaduct, but
just as the officer, at the top of the steps, reached out and was on the
point of grabbing his man, Peace with lightning agility slipped through
his fingers and disappeared. The police never had a shadow of suspicion
that Mr. Thompson of Peckham was Charles Peace of Sheffield. They knew
the former only as a polite and chatty old gentleman of a scientific
turn of mind, who drove his own pony and trap, and had a fondness for
music and keeping pet animals.
Peace made the mistake of outstaying his welcome in the neighbourhood
of South-East London. Perhaps he hardly realised the extent to which
his fame was spreading. During the last three months of Peace's career,
Blackheath was agog at the number of successful burglaries committed
in the very midst of its peaceful residents. The vigilance of the local
police was aroused, the officers on night duty were only too anxious to
effect the capture of the mysterious criminal.
About two o'clock in the morning of October 10, 1878, a police
constable, Robinson by name, saw a light appear suddenly in a window at
the back of a house in St. John's Park, Blackheath, the residence of a
Mr. Burness. Had the looked-for opportunity arrived? Was the mysterious
visitor, the disturber of the peace of Blackheath, at his burglarious
employment? Without delay Robinson summoned to his aid two of his
colleagues. One of them went round to the front of the house and rang
the bell, the other waited in the road outside, while Robinson stayed in
the garden at the back. No sooner had the bell rung than Robinson saw a
man come from the dining-room window which opened on to the garden, and
make quickly down the path. Robinson followed him. The man turned; "Keep
back!" he said, "or by God I'll shoot you!" Robinson came on. The man
fired three shots from a revolver, all of which passed close to the
officer's head. Robinson made another rush for him, the man fired
another shot. It missed its mark. The constable closed with his would-be
assassin, and struck him in the face. "I'll settle you this time," cried
the man, and fired a fifth shot, which went through Robinson's arm just
above the elbow. But, in spite of his wound, the valiant officer held
his prisoner, succeeded in flinging him to the ground, and catching hold
of the revolver that hung round the burglar's wrist, hit him on the head
with it. Immediately after the other two constables came to the help of
their colleague, and the struggling desperado was secured.
Little did the police as they searched their battered and moaning
prisoner realise the importance of their capture. When next morning
Peace appeared before the magistrate at Greenwich Police Court he was
not described by name--he had refused to give any--but as a half-caste
about sixty years of age, of repellant aspect. He was remanded for a
week. The first clue to the identity of their prisoner was afforded
by a letter which Peace, unable apparently to endure the loneliness and
suspense of prison any longer, wrote to his co-inventor Mr. Brion. It is
dated November 2, and is signed "John Ward." Peace was disturbed at the
absence of all news from his family. Immediately after his arrest, the
home in Peckham had been broken up. Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Peace, taking
with them some large boxes, had gone first to the house of a sister of
Mrs. Thompson's in Nottingham, and a day or two later Mrs. Peace had
left Nottingham for Sheffield. There she went to a house in Hazel Road,
occupied by her son-in-law Bolsover, a working collier.(10)
(10) Later, Mrs. Peace was arrested and charged with being in possession
of stolen property. She was taken to London and tried at the Old Bailey
before Mr. Commissioner Kerr, but acquitted on the ground of her having
acted under the compulsion of her husband.
It was no doubt to get news of his family that Peace wrote to Brion. But
the letters are sufficiently ingenious. Peace represents himself as a
truly penitent sinner who has got himself into a most unfortunate and
unexpected "mess" by giving way to drink. The spelling of the letters is
exaggeratedly illiterate. He asks Mr. Brion to take pity on him and not
despise him as "his own famery has don," to write him a letter to "hease
his trobel hart," if possible to come and see him. Mr. Brion complied
with the request of the mysterious "John Ward," and on arriving at
Newgate where Peace was awaiting trial, found himself in the presence of
his friend and colleague, Mr. Thompson.
In the meantime the police were getting hot on the scent of the identity
of "John Ward" with the great criminal who in spite of all their efforts
had eluded them for two years. The honour and profit of putting the
police on the right scent were claimed by Mrs. Thompson. To her Peace
had contrived to get a letter conveyed about the same time that he wrote
to Mr. Brion. It is addressed to his "dearly beloved wife." He asks
pardon for the "drunken madness" that has involved him in his present
trouble, and gives her the names of certain witnesses whom he would wish
to be called to prove his independent means and his dealings in musical
instruments. It is, he writes, his first offence, and as he has "never
been in prison before," begs her not to feel it a disgrace to come and
see him there. But Peace was leaning on a broken reed. Loyalty does not
appear to have been Susan Thompson's strong point. In her own words she
"was not of the sentimental sort." The "traitress Sue," as she is called
by chroniclers of the time, had fallen a victim to the wiles of the
police. Since, after Peace's arrest, she had been in possession of a
certain amount of stolen property, it was easier no doubt to persuade
her to be frank.