_Notable English Trials_
William Palmer
NOTABLE ENGLISH TRIALS.
=The Stauntons.= Edited by J. B. Atlay, M.A., Barrister-at-Law.
=Franz Muller.= Edited by H. B. Irving, M.A.(Oxon).
=Lord Lovat.= Edited by David N. Mackay, Solicitor.
=William Palmer.= Edited by Geo. H. Knott, Barrister-at-Law.
=The Annesley Case.= Edited by Andrew Lang.
=Dr. Lamson.= Edited by H. L. Adam.
=Mrs. Maybrick.= Edited by H. B. Irving, M.A.(Oxon).
[Illustration: William Palmer.
(_From a Drawing by Joseph Simpson._)]
Trial of
William Palmer
EDITED BY
George H. Knott
Barrister-at-Law
[Illustration: colophon]
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
WILLIAM HODGE & COMPANY
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM HODGE AND COMPANY
GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH
1912
To
SIR HARRY BODKIN POLAND, K.C.,
WHO BEARS THE NAME, AND HAS CONTINUED THE REPUTATION,
OF ONE OF THE DISTINGUISHED COUNSEL IN THE TRIAL HEREIN
CONTAINED, AND WHO ALSO FOR MANY YEARS WAS THE REPRESENTATIVE
FIGURE IN THE COURT WHERE THAT TRIAL WAS HELD,
THIS BOOK IS, BY HIS KIND PERMISSION,
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE EDITOR.
PREFACE.
In preparing this report of a trial more than half a century ago, the
chief difficulty one might expect would be to obtain an accurate
contemporary account. A State trial one knows where to find; but how
could newspaper reports of a trial lasting twelve days, and involving
the most technical evidence on anatomy, physiology, and toxicology, be
relied upon for anything like accuracy? Fortunately, if this trial was
not a State trial in the ordinary sense, it so seized the minds of the
country at the time that a complete record is to be found in the
“Verbatim Report of the Trial of William Palmer, Transcribed from the
Shorthand Notes of Mr. Angelo Bennett, of Rolls Chambers, Chancery
Lane,” and published in 1856. A copy is not easily met with now-a-days.
Official verbatim reports of criminal trials, that is made by an officer
of the Court itself, were not then known. I suppose, though it is not so
stated, that Mr. Bennett’s notes were taken by him on the instructions
of the Treasury for reference each day by the Court and Counsel. They
are the basis of the following report. Medical and medico-chemical
evidence constitutes the greater part of this trial; it is also far the
most important part; and in dealing with it I have had the benefit of
the professional skill of Dr. William Robertson, of Leith, who has read
the proofs. Some of the evidence, as it stood, showed that it had been a
little too much for the erudition of the shorthand writer, and needed
editing. I hope that, with the aid of Dr. Robertson, this appears now as
it was intended to be by the experts who gave it.
The question of portraits has caused some difficulty. Photographs were
not common, to say the least, in 1856. Most woodcuts met with seemed not
worth reproduction. This accounts for the few portraits which appear;
though the number of Judges and Counsel was exceptionally large. Palmer
alone is shown more satisfactorily than any of the others in the
well-known figure at Madame Tussaud’s. Their modeller was present in
Court and I have seen his casts of Palmer’s head and face taken after
execution. The striking sketch of Palmer by Mr. Joseph Simpson, the
well-known artist, has been made from a photograph of this figure, and
from a contemporary print.
Palmer has the distinction of an article in the Dictionary of National
Biography. Many of the contemporary accounts cannot be relied on; they
are too evidently sensational and designed for excited and morbid
imaginations. By the kindness of Dr. George Fleming, J.P., of Highgate,
London, who is a treasury of Palmeriana and of Rugeley tradition, I have
been able to use his collection of “Jane” letters. The substance of
these letters appears in the Introduction. They reveal a sinister
episode in Palmer’s career not to be found related elsewhere. Moreover,
it was a real link in the chain of circumstances that led to Palmer’s
crime and his trial. The letter from Palmer to his wife was kindly lent
for reproduction by Dr. Kurt Loewenfeld, of Bramhall, Cheshire.
G. H. K.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Introduction, 1
Table of Dates, 18
List of Counsel, 21
The Trial--
FIRST DAY--WEDNESDAY, 14TH MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Prosecution._
Ishmael Fisher, 23
Thomas Jones, 26
George Reid, 26
William Scafe Gibson, 26
Elizabeth Mills, 27
SECOND DAY--THURSDAY, 15TH MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Prosecution (continued)._
Elizabeth Mills (cross-examined) 33
James Gardner, 37
Anne Brooks, 37
Lavinia Barnes, 39
Anne Rowley, 42
Charles Hawley, 42
Sarah Bond, 42
William Henry Jones, 44
Elizabeth Mills (recalled), 49
Henry Savage, 49
Charles Newton, 49
THIRD DAY--FRIDAY, 16TH MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Prosecution (continued)._
Charles Joseph Roberts, 52
William Vernon Stevens, 52
Dr. John Thomas Harland, 55
Charles John Devonshire, 58
John Myatt, 59
Samuel Cheshire, 59
Samuel Cheshire (recalled), 60
Captain John Haines Hatton, 61
Samuel Cheshire (recalled), 61
George Herring, 61
FOURTH DAY--SATURDAY, 17TH MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Prosecution (continued)._
George Bate, 63
Thomas Blizzard Curling, 63
Robert Todd, 64
Sir Benjamin Brodie, 67
Henry Daniel, 68
Samuel Solly, 69
Dr. Robert Corbett, 70
Dr. Watson, 70
Mary Kelly, 70
Caroline Hickson, 70
Francis Taylor, 71
Jane Witham, 71
George Morley, 72
Edward Duke Moore, 74
FIFTH DAY--MONDAY, 19TH MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Prosecution (continued)._
Dr. Alfred Taylor, 75
Dr. George Owen Rees, 83
Professor Robert Christison, 84
SIXTH DAY--TUESDAY, 20TH MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Prosecution (concluded)._
Dr. John Jackson, 89
SEVENTH DAY--WEDNESDAY, 21ST MAY, 1856.
_Speech for the Defence._
Serjeant Shee, 91
EIGHTH DAY--THURSDAY, 22ND MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Defence._
Thomas Nunneley, 161
William Herepath, 174
Julian Edward Disbrowe Rogers, 176
Dr. Henry Letheby, 176
Robert Edward Gay, 181
NINTH DAY--FRIDAY, 23RD MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Defence (continued)._
John Brown Ross, 183
Dr. Francis Wrightson, 184
Richard Partridge, 186
John Gay, 189
Dr. William M‘Donnell, 192
Dr. John Nathan Bainbridge, 200
Edward Austin Steady, 201
Dr. George Robinson, 202
Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson, 204
Dr. Wrightson (recalled), 207
Catherine Watson, 207
TENTH DAY--SATURDAY, 24TH MAY, 1856.
_Evidence for the Defence (continued)._
Oliver Pemberton, 208
Henry Matthews, 208
Joseph Foster, 208
George Myatt, 209
John Sargent, 210
Jeremiah Smith, 211
The Attorney-General’s Address to the Jury, 214
ELEVENTH DAY--MONDAY, 26TH MAY, 1856.
The Lord Chief-Justice’s Charge to the Jury, 266
TWELFTH DAY--TUESDAY, 27TH MAY, 1856.
The Lord Chief-Justice’s Charge to the Jury (continued), 275
Verdict and Sentence, 285
APPENDICES.
I. Letter from Thomas Palmer, brother of William Palmer, to the
Lord Chief-Justice Campbell, 289
II. Short Account of the Judges and Counsel engaged in the Case, 316
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
William Palmer, _Frontispiece_
Mr. Serjeant Shee, _facing page_ 91
Note written by Palmer to his Counsel while in the
dock at the Old Bailey, “ 160
Sir Alexander Cockburn, “ 214
Lord Chief-Justice Campbell, “ 266
Mr. Baron Alderson, “ 316
Letter from William Palmer to his wife, “ 320
Facsimile of page from the Diary of William Palmer, “ 324
WILLIAM PALMER.
INTRODUCTION.
Sir James Stephen, in his “History of the Criminal Law,” observes that
he was present at the trial of William Palmer, and that it made an
impression on him which the subsequent experience of thirty-four years
had only confirmed and strengthened. He considers that the trial, as a
whole, was one of the greatest trials in the history of English law, and
eminently deserving the attention of students of the law, and we may add
of students of human nature.
Palmer was convicted, but there has always been a certain amount of
doubt and mystery about the trial. We can hardly imagine a reader not
being satisfied morally as to the guilt of Palmer, but were he to take
the medical and chemical evidence alone, which forms so large a part of
the following report, we could at least imagine him holding his judgment
in suspense. He might well believe that Palmer administered poison to
Cook, whom he was charged with murdering, without admitting that the
poison was strychnia. And there remains the ambiguous language of Palmer
himself, who neither positively admitted nor denied his guilt, but
declared, “I am innocent of poisoning Cook by strychnia.” Sir James
Stephen, who will not allow that the defence was impressive, is yet
struck with this defect in the evidence, and suggests that Palmer may
have discovered a method of administering strychnia so as to disguise
its normal effects. If this is so, his secret has never been disclosed.
Perhaps it is equally probable that he selected some poison allied to
strychnia--bruchsia, for example--and that the medical and chemical
experts of sixty years ago were not sufficiently acquainted with the
strychnoid poisons to trace all their differences. The evidence of the
chemical witnesses suggests something of this kind, so inconsistent were
their opinions; and this remark applies even more strongly to the
evidence of the doctors as to the difference between the disease of
tetanus and the effects of strychnia. This is one of the great subjects
of interest in the report of the trial. A constant and alert attention
is needed in reading it, and it is a professional discipline for either
lawyer or doctor.
Our personal opinion is that, had it not been for one or two definitely
known cases of strychnia poisoning in the human subject, the prosecution
would have failed, in spite of all the experiments on animals from which
analogies as to Cook’s symptoms were attempted to be drawn. There had
been no trial for poisoning by strychnia before Palmer’s. But it
happened that while the Palmer case was pending Dr. Dove, of Leeds, was
accused of poisoning his wife by strychnia, and the symptoms of poison
were more certainly ascertained. Yet Dr. Nunneley, of Leeds, who made a
report on this case, was called for the defence, not for the
prosecution.
In this preliminary sketch I shall not attempt to convey any idea of the
chemical and medical evidence by a formal summary. It would be
impossible, as Sir James Stephen remarks, to treat satisfactorily such
an extensive, so technical, and so contradictory a body of testimony,
and only such a general statement will be made of the circumstances as
will enable the reader the easier to follow the case of the prosecution.
In the English procedure counsel’s speech for the prosecution begins the
proceedings. In the Scottish the evidence is led at once. The trial is
treated in this respect as if it were a Scottish trial on account of its
extreme bulk, as it extended over twelve days. Neither in the Scottish
series, which are already published, nor in the English series, now
beginning, is there a trial of equal length; nor do I know any other
murder trial so long, with the exception of that conducted by Browning
in “The Ring and the Book.” In this trial, as in every English trial,
the opening speech was intended to inform the jury merely of the facts
and prepare their minds for the evidence, and lucidity of statement, at
the most, is the only forensic effect aimed at. I accordingly omit the
Attorney-General’s speech _qua_ speech, and found this preliminary
statement on it. The point of interest as regards forensic oratory is
reached with the speech of Serjeant Shee, the leading counsel for the
defence. He analyses the evidence led for the prosecution, challenges
its cogency, outlines the case in reply which will be an answer to every
point made, appeals eloquently and pathetically for the prisoner, and,
we may add incidentally, asserts his absolute belief in his client’s
innocence, thus bringing on himself the presiding judge’s reproof for
transgression of the rules of advocacy. The culmination is attained in
the reply of the Attorney-General. Nothing, unless it is of the most
temporary interest, is omitted in these two speeches, and every
reference and argument in them will be intelligible in the light of the
examinations and cross-examinations as given, which, not less than the
speeches, are classic examples of the forensic art.
There is a tradition that Palmer, a racing man, expressed his sense of
the deadly effect of Sir Alexander Cockburn’s examination,
cross-examination, and speech in racecourse language, “It was the riding
that did it.”
With the Lord Chief-Justice’s summing up I have dealt freely. It
occupied two days, and the form of it, to a great extent, was this. Lord
Campbell would say to the jury, “Now, gentlemen, I will take the witness
So-and-So and read you his evidence. It is for you to say what the
effect of this evidence is.” Then would follow comments directing the
jury’s attention to this or that feature. What the jury thought is not
important now, but what the reader thinks with the evidence before him.
Where Lord Campbell made special comment on any particular evidence the
passages are given. Nothing material is omitted, and the general effect
of his address is preserved.
The events occurred in November, 1855, at Rugeley, in Staffordshire,
where Palmer, who was about thirty-one years of age, had been a medical
practitioner until two or three years previously, when he transferred
his business to the Mr. Thirlby mentioned in the report. He had
abandoned medicine for the turf, kept racehorses, attended race
meetings, and betted. By the year 1853 he was in pecuniary difficulties,
and was raising money on bills with moneylenders.
Mr. John Parsons Cook, whom Palmer was charged with poisoning, was a
young man of about twenty-eight who had been articled as a solicitor,
but he inherited some £12,000, and did not follow his profession. He
also went on the turf, kept racehorses, and betted, and it was in this
common pursuit that Palmer and Cook became acquainted.
Palmer’s pecuniary circumstances in 1854 are important. He had raised
money on a bill for £2000, and discounted it with Padwick, a notorious
moneylender and racing man of the day. He had forged his mother’s name
as acceptor, and, as she was wealthy, the bill had been discounted on
the security of her name. It was this bill and others similarly forged
which, according to the prosecution, led to the murder of Cook.
Previously to this Palmer had only been able to pay off debts to the
amount of £13,000 on bills which were in the hands of another
moneylender, Mr. Pratt, who figures so conspicuously in the trial, out
of money received on the death of his wife, whom he had insured for
£13,000.
At the close of 1854 he took out another policy for £13,000 on the life
of his brother Walter. This policy was deposited as security with Pratt
to cover a series of bills which began then to be discounted. These, by
November, 1855, amounted to £11,500. His mother’s name as acceptor had
also been forged on these bills by Palmer.
In the month of August, 1855, Walter Palmer died, but the office refused
to pay on the policy, and the question was still in dispute in November
when the death of Mr. Cook occurred. If the policy were not paid Pratt
would sue Mrs. Palmer, as Palmer himself had no means, so that Palmer
was in the same peril of being shown to be a forger both by Pratt and
Padwick.
This policy was never paid, and we may add that when Palmer was tried
for the murder of Cook there were two other indictments against him for
the murders of his wife and brother, but they were not proceeded with as
he was convicted on the Cook charge.
What happened about the bills was this. On the 6th of November Pratt
issued two writs for £4000 against Palmer and his mother, but withheld
them from service pending arrangements that Palmer might make. Pratt
wrote to him on the 13th of November, a memorable day in the history of
the case, when “Polestar,” Cook’s mare, won the Shrewsbury Handicap,
that steps would be taken to enforce the policy on Walter Palmer’s life;
so that Palmer’s problem was to keep paying portions of the bills until
the question of the policy was settled, and thus keep Pratt quiet.
The pecuniary position of Cook is quickly explained. He had practically
nothing but what came to him through the winning of “Polestar” at
Shrewsbury on the 13th of November. His betting book showed winnings
which amounted, with the stakes, to £2050. It was proved that he had
£700 or £800 in his pocket at Shrewsbury from the bets he actually drew
there, and £1020 remained to be settled at Tattersall’s on the following
Monday, the 19th November.
The evidence will show how Palmer obtained payment of the bets with the
exception of £120, and applied them to paying instalments on Pratt’s
bills.
We now come to the circumstances of the illness and death of Cook.
Palmer and Cook went together from Rugeley to Shrewsbury races, and
stayed at the Raven Hotel. On the night of the 14th of November, and the
day after “Polestar” had won the race, Cook was taken ill at the Raven
with severe retchings and vomitings in consequence of having taken a
glass of brandy and water into which the prosecution alleged Palmer had
put antimony in the form of tartar emetic. The only direct testimony as
to this was that of a Mrs. Brooks, who attended races. She knew Palmer,
and called on him at the Raven on some business connected with racing.
She swore that, as she turned into the lobby, she saw Palmer holding up
a tumbler to the light of the gas, looking at it “with the caution of a
man who was watching to see what was the condition of the liquid,”
according to the Attorney-General’s statement. Having looked at it so he
withdrew to his own room, and presently returned with the glass in his
hand, and then went into the room where Cook was, and where he drank the
brandy and water. There was much evidence from other witnesses as to
what happened in connection with the brandy and water incident.
The state of Cook’s health previous to the incident at Shrewsbury was of
the utmost importance. It was admitted by the prosecution that Cook was
delicate of chest, but otherwise he was asserted to be hale and hearty.
In May of 1855 he had consulted Dr. Savage for supposed syphilitic
symptoms. He suffered from his throat, and had some eruptions about his
mouth, and he had been taking mercury. Dr. Savage stopped this
treatment, and advised that the symptoms were not those of syphilis. The
post-mortem showed the cicatrised wound of an old chancre, but not of
anything recent. The defence sought to show that Cook’s death was
connected with his history of ill-health.
When the races were over Palmer and Cook returned together to Rugeley--a
curious fact, seeing that Cook had accused Palmer of putting something
into his glass. Cook stayed at the Talbot Arms, which was opposite to
Palmer’s house, and it was at this inn that Cook’s death occurred. Their
arrival was on the night of Thursday, the 15th of November. When asked
how he was Cook said that he was better than he had been at Shrewsbury.
Cook dined next day with Palmer, and nothing happened that night. Early
on Saturday morning Palmer saw Cook in his bedroom, and ordered him some
coffee, which was brought there by Elizabeth Mills, the chambermaid, who
gave most important evidence as to the various episodes of the illness
until the death on the night of Tuesday, the 20th November. The coffee
was given to Palmer, and he gave it to Cook, Mills having left.
“Immediately after that the same symptoms set in which had taken place
at Shrewsbury, and throughout the whole of that day and the next day”
(Saturday and Sunday) “the prisoner constantly administered everything
to Cook.” One incident was a bowl of broth being obtained by Palmer
through a woman named Rowley. She was sent for it to the Albion, an inn
in Rugeley. She took it to Palmer’s house and put it in a saucepan on
the kitchen fire to warm. Palmer, whilst she was absent in the back
kitchen, poured the broth into a basin, brought it to her, and told her
to take it up to Cook, and say Smith had sent it. This was Jeremiah
Smith, an attorney in Rugeley, a common friend of Palmer and Cook. A
spoonful of the broth made Cook sick. But the full significance of this
intended inference is not seen until we take the evidence of Mills that
she drank a spoonful and became sick in about half an hour, and had to
go to bed.
And here we may refer to the evidence of this Jeremiah Smith, who was
called as a witness on behalf of Palmer. His cross-examination was the
most dramatic scene of the trial. He was shown to have been concerned
with Palmer in the insurance schemes, and not a rag of his credit
remained. But Sir James Stephen remarks, “No abbreviation can give the
effect of this cross-examination. The witness’s efforts to gain time,
and his distress as the various answers were extorted from him by
degrees, may be faintly traced in the report. The witness’s face was
covered with sweat, and the papers put into his hands shook and
rustled.”
During Saturday and Sunday Cook was attended by Mr. Bamford, a medical
man in Rugeley. As Mr. Bamford’s age gave rise to some observation, I
may mention that he was eighty. He was told by Palmer on the Saturday
that Cook had had a bilious attack owing to having taken too much wine
at the dinner the day before, but when Mr. Bamford mentioned this Cook
replied that he had only two glasses of champagne, and Mr. Bamford, in
fact, found that the symptoms were not bilious.
On Sunday, as the sickness continued, Mr. Bamford prepared two opiate
pills containing half a grain of morphia, half a grain of calomel, and
four grains of rhubarb. The ingredients are important. The following
Monday is a crucial day. Palmer went to London and saw Herring, a
betting man, gave him a list of Cook’s winnings, and instructed him to
attend Tattersall’s and settle. Herring was not Cook’s regular agent,
but Fisher, the man to whom Cook had entrusted his money at Shrewsbury
whilst he was ill. Fisher declared that he had, in fact, advanced £200
on the strength of the money which Fisher expected to draw at
Tattersall’s. This £200, at the request of Cook, in a letter written by
him from Rugeley on the 16th of November (Friday), was applied by Fisher
to one of Pratt’s acceptances. This letter was used by the defence to
show that, as Palmer alleged, the bills were for the joint transactions
of himself and Cook, and by parity of reasoning that Palmer had probably
Cook’s authority to draw his bets. Herring drew £900 of the £1020 at
Tattersall’s, and, as Palmer had instructed him, he paid £450 to Pratt.
He was also instructed to pay Padwick £350 for a bet which Padwick had
won, partly from Palmer and partly from Cook, but for which Palmer was
liable: again a suggestion of joint transactions between Palmer and
Cook. This payment was to be made, according to the prosecution, to keep
Padwick quiet over his £2000 forged acceptance, half of which remained
unpaid. Herring, however, did not pay Padwick. If he had done so he
would have been out of pocket, as it had been agreed between him and
Palmer that part of the money he was to draw should be applied to debts
of his own due from Palmer.
Palmer finished his business in town by going to Pratt. He paid him £50,
so that this, the £450, and Fisher’s £200, with £600 Palmer had
previously paid, wiped off £1300. He then returned to Rugeley, arriving
there at an hour which was certainly mistaken by the prosecution, and
which derived its chief importance from the story told by Jeremiah
Smith of his meeting Palmer returning much later, and the account he
gave of their movements together. If his story were true, that of the
witness Newton, who spoke to the purchase by Palmer from him of
strychnia that night, would be suspect. As it was, doubt was cast upon
it by Newton never mentioning it until the day of the trial. Cook during
Palmer’s absence had no sickness, though in the morning Palmer, who had
gone early to the hotel, had given him coffee, and Cook had vomited. But
after Palmer left for London Mr. Bamford had come, and given him a new
medicine. It was arguable, therefore, that the irritation of the stomach
was soothed by the new medicine. Cook dressed, got up, recovered his
spirits, and saw and talked with several people, and so he continued
till night. This has the most important bearing, as will be seen by the
medical evidence, on the vital point whether Cook’s symptoms were either
those of strychnia poisoning, or idiopathic or traumatic tetanus, or of
some other form of nervous disease with tetanic convulsions.
On Palmer’s return to Rugeley he went to see Cook, and he remained,
going in and out of his room, until about eleven o’clock. He then left,
and about twelve the house was alarmed by violent screams from Cook’s
rooms. I shall refer the reader for the details of this illness to the
evidence.
According to the prosecution Palmer had gone previously on that night to
Newton, who was the assistant of a surgeon at Rugeley named Salt, and
had purchased three grains of strychnia. This was Newton’s statement.
Whilst Palmer was away in London Mr. Bamford had sent to the Talbot Arms
the same sort of pills, in which were morphia, calomel, and rhubarb.
They were taken by the maid upstairs, and put in the usual place for
Palmer to administer, as he had done before.
The Attorney-General put his case thus to the jury, “It will be for you
to say whether Cook took the pills prepared by Mr. Bamford, and which he
had taken on the Saturday and Sunday night, or whether, as this
accusation suggests, the prisoner substituted for the pills of Mr.
Bamford some of his own concoction in which strychnia was mixed.”
On Tuesday morning, the 20th, the day of his death, Cook was
comparatively comfortable after his violent attack.
That same morning Palmer went to the shop of a druggist at Rugeley, Mr.
Hawkins. He asked for six grains of strychnia, with some prussic acid
and some liquor of opium. While Hawkins’ assistant Roberts was putting
up the prussic acid Newton came into the shop. Palmer took him by the
arm, and saying, “I have something I want to say to you,” led him
outside, and began to talk to him about an unimportant matter. While
they were talking a man Bassington came up, and when he and Newton were
fully engaged in talk Palmer went back into the shop, and stood in the
doorway. Palmer went away with what he had bought, and then Newton went
into the shop and inquired what Palmer had bought, and was told.
At the preliminary inquiry before the coroner Newton only told of this
incident at the shop. He did not tell of Palmer having purchased
strychnia from him on the Monday night until the day before the
Attorney-General was making his speech for the prosecution. An
explanation will be found in Newton’s evidence.
Before coming to the actual circumstances of Cook’s death on Tuesday
night two other facts must be mentioned. On the previous Sunday Palmer
wrote to Mr. Jones, a medical man living at Lutterworth, with whom Cook
lived when he was at home. He said Cook had a bilious attack with
diarrhœa, and asked Jones to come and see him as soon as possible. On
Monday he wrote to him again desiring him to come.
The Attorney-General said, “I should not be discharging my duty if I did
not suggest this as being part of a deep design, and that the
administration of the irritant poison, of which abundant traces were
found after death, was for the purpose of producing the appearance of
natural disease, which could account afterwards for the death to which
the victim was doomed.”
The irritant poison referred to is antimony, but one of the main facts,
if not altogether the most important one, on which the defence relied,
was that no strychnia was found in the body of Cook.
Mr. Jones came on the Tuesday about three o’clock, and was with Cook
throughout till his death.
The other fact referred to is that during the same day (Tuesday) Palmer
sent for Cheshire, the postmaster at Rugeley. Palmer produced a paper
and asked him to fill in a cheque on Messrs. Wetherby (of Tattersall’s)
in Palmer’s favour for £350 (the amount of the Shrewsbury Handicap
stakes), saying “Poor Cook is too ill to draw the cheque himself, and
Messrs. Wetherby might know my handwriting.” Palmer was a defaulter at
Tattersall’s. Cheshire did what he was asked to do. Palmer took the
cheque away. It was sent that night, and returned to Palmer by Messrs.
Wetherby. Notice to produce the cheque was given to the defence. This
was not done, and the prosecution in these circumstances insisted that
Cook’s signature was forged by Palmer. If the cheque had been produced,
and Cook’s signature proved genuine, the defence would have had a strong
case that Palmer drew the bets by Cook’s instruction for their joint
transactions.
Cheshire was brought from prison to give evidence. Palmer had induced
him to intercept letters addressed to Palmer’s mother to prevent her
becoming aware of the forged bills. Besides this, Cheshire informed
Palmer of the contents of a letter from Dr. Taylor, the analyst, who
tested the remains for poison after the post mortem on the coroner’s
inquiry. This letter informed Mr. Stevens, Cook’s stepfather, that no
strychnia had been found, and Palmer was sufficiently audacious and
foolish to write to the coroner, a Mr. Ward, a lawyer, emphasising this
fact. More foolishly still he sent the coroner gifts of game. The
prosecution asserted that much of the evidence given by some of the
witnesses, Mills, for instance, at the trial, but not found in the
depositions at the inquest, had not been given there because the coroner
had conducted the inquiry so laxly. The defence, of course, disputed
this.
We come to the actual scene of Cook’s death on the Tuesday night. There
was a consultation of the three doctors in Cook’s presence at seven
o’clock. Cook suddenly said to Palmer, “Palmer, I will have no more
medicine to-night; no more pills.” It was arranged that the pills should
be made up as before without Cook knowing what they contained. Palmer
went with Mr. Bamford to the latter’s surgery for the pills, and Mr.
Bamford was surprised at Palmer’s asking him to write the directions on
the box, as Palmer himself was to give the pills, but he did so. Palmer
took the pills, and they were in his possession three-quarters of an
hour before he returned to the Talbot. On opening the box he called the
attention of Mr. Jones to the directions, saying “How wonderful it was
that a man of eighty should write so good and strong a hand.” Cook at
first refused to take the pills, but Palmer insisted, and Cook took
them. They were taken about half-past ten. A little before twelve
o’clock Jones, who was to sleep in Cook’s room, came in and undressed,
and went to bed. In fifteen or twenty minutes he was roused by a scream
from Cook, who called out, “For God’s sake, fetch the doctor, I am going
to be ill as I was last night.”
I shall not set out the symptoms of Cook throughout this attack which
ended in his death. They were the battle-ground of the case, and the
scientific evidence must be referred to the reader’s consideration. But
the length of time from the administration of the pills to the first
outcry of Cook must be particularly noted. The defence urged that
strychnia could not possibly be so long in taking effect. This and the
non-detection of strychnia in the body were the two chief difficulties
of the prosecution.
On Thursday or Friday, the 22nd or 23rd, after Cook’s death Palmer sent
again for Cheshire, and, producing a paper with Cook’s signature,
purporting to be an acknowledgment by Cook that £4000 worth of bills had
been negotiated for Cook’s benefit, asked him to sign it as witness.
Cheshire refused, exclaiming, “Good God! the man is dead!” The
prosecution asserted Cook’s signature to be a forgery; they gave notice
to produce the document, and this was not done.
We come to the appearance in Rugeley of Mr. Stevens, Cook’s stepfather.
His conversations with Palmer on money matters, his suspicions aroused
by the appearance of the body, Palmer’s ordering a coffin without his
orders, and especially the fact that Cook’s betting book and other
papers had disappeared, with Palmer’s evasions about them, all put him
on the alert. Besides, at the time, the inquiries by the insurance
office were going on in the neighbourhood about Walter Palmer’s death.
On Saturday, the 24th, both Stevens and Palmer had left Rugeley to go to
London, Stevens to consult his London solicitor, Palmer to pay Pratt
another £100, he, as the prosecution pointed out, not having had any
money at Shrewsbury, and having lost on the races there. Stevens and
Palmer met in the train on the return journey, and Stevens told Palmer
that he was determined to have a post-mortem and to employ a solicitor
to investigate.
The post-mortem, the chemical analysis, the coroner’s inquest, and the
trial followed. In the meantime Padwick had arrested Palmer for the
debt on his bills, the story of his mother’s forged acceptances became
known, and the Palmer case of 1855-6 became as intense a source of
popular curiosity and excitement as the Crippen case of 1910. To the
circumstances of the Cook case were also added the exhumations of
Palmer’s wife and brother, and the public inquiries relating to them,
and the rumours that Palmer had poisoned many others.
I shall not attempt to give the facts as to the post-mortem and the
analysis. It would be a futile effort. Not a fact was undisputed either
by one side or the other, and the value of the evidence, for the reader,
consists in the exercise of the patience and memory and judgment
required to master their complicated details, and to see the relations
of one fact to another. In the speech for the defence by Mr. Serjeant
Shee, and the final speech by Sir Alexander Cockburn, he will further
see how the same facts may be rendered for opposite purposes by
advocates of the first rank.
The trial marked an important step in English criminal procedure. In the
ordinary course Palmer would have been tried by an Assize Court in
Staffordshire, but the prejudice against him there was so strong that it
was felt he would not have a fair trial. An Act was therefore passed,
the 19 Vict. cap. 16, for enabling the trial to take place at the
Central Criminal Court in London. Since then that Act has been available
in any similar circumstances. To the magnitude and difficulty of the
Palmer case must be assigned the reason for three judges, Lord Chief
Justice Campbell, Mr. Justice Cresswell, and Mr. Baron Alderson being
appointed to try it: a very rare occurrence in England. The bar on each
side was remarkably strong. Sir Alexander Cockburn became the successor
of Lord Campbell; Mr. Edward James, Q.C., was one of the most brilliant
advocates of his day, and was only prevented from rising to the highest
professional honours by certain private incidents in his career which
happened subsequently; Mr. Huddleston became Baron Huddleston; Mr.
Bodkin and Mr. Welsby were the leading men of their time in the special
practice of the Old Bailey. Mr. Serjeant Shee, the leader for the
defence, became Mr. Justice Shee, and Mr. Grove, Q.C., who was one of
the most distinguished physicists of his day, and wrote a famous book on
“The Conservation of Energy,” became Mr. Justice Grove. Mr. Kenealey
was subsequently the famous Dr. Kenealey, the counsel for the Tichborne
claimant, a man of great learning and natural genius, inferior to none
of his professional contemporaries.
In an English criminal trial an inquiry into the family history of the
accused, or into his personal character and previous career, has no
place unless insanity is in issue. Such matters were rigidly excluded
from the trial of Palmer. This trial as it stands is simply a great
forensic contest famous in the records of the criminal law. The criminal
himself is, as it were, an abstraction or automaton, his acts are only
taken into account as part of certain outward events which enter into
the general body of circumstances connected with the particular case.
The motive is investigated, but strictly in relation to the particular
crime; and in atrocious crimes the pecuniary motive always seems
inadequate. Deadly hate or fierce passion, or an access of unreasoning
fear in some circumstances, may be more intelligible. Yet such crimes
seem always inexplicable, unless we can refer them to some abnormality
in the character of the criminal himself, and either ascribe it to his
ancestry or deduce it from his own doings outside the culminating crime
which he commits. The normal man, we say, does not become base at a
stroke.
In Palmer’s case there is available evidence of both kinds bearing on
abnormality. It may not amount to insanity. It may be only the
“wickedness” of which Sir James Stephen speaks in a quotation given
below. Whatever it may be called, it is traceable in Palmer throughout
his life.
Palmer’s father was a wealthy man who died worth £70,000, at Rugeley, in
Staffordshire, Palmer’s birthplace. The origin of this fortune began
with his maternal grandfather, who had been associated with a woman in
Derby whom he deserted, taking with him some hundreds of pounds said to
belong to her. In Lichfield he became prosperous and respectable. His
daughter married the elder Palmer, who was at the time a sawyer, a rude,
uneducated man. A previous suitor of Mrs. Palmer had been the steward of
the Marquis of Anglesea. The two men were intimate after the marriage,
and associated in dealings with the Anglesea timber; and to these
dealings, and similar ones with stewards of other estates, the elder
Palmer’s wealth was attributed by the country tradition. After her
husband’s death Mrs. Palmer used her freedom in several love affairs
that caused scandal. One of these was with Jeremiah Smith, the
attorney, Palmer’s associate in many nefarious transactions, who was
called for the defence, and was cross-examined mercilessly by the
Attorney-General on his relations with Mrs. Palmer.
William, the Palmer of this trial, was the second son in a family of
five sons and two daughters. Of these, William, his brother Walter, and
a sister lived badly and died miserably. Walter would have died from
drink if his brother William had not hurried him away by poison for his
insurance money. Other members of the family were reputable citizens.
William Palmer was first apprenticed to a firm of wholesale druggists in
Liverpool. After a time considerable amounts of money sent through the
post by customers to the firm were lost, and, after much inquiry, Palmer
confessed he had stolen them, and his indentures were cancelled. His
mother then for the first time began to cover up her son’s misdeeds by
advances of money. This story runs throughout the trial, and Palmer
fleeced his mother without compunction.
At the age of eighteen he was next apprenticed to Mr. Tylecote, a
surgeon, near Rugeley. In consequence of discreditable conduct with
women, and in money matters, Palmer left, and Mr. Tylecote refused to
take him back. He was then admitted into the Stafford Infirmary as “a
walking pupil.” Four years after, in 1846, he was back at Rugeley, and
there, at an inquest held on a man named Abley, it was proved that
Palmer had incited the man to drink large quantities of brandy. There
was talk of Palmer’s connection with Abley’s wife, and a suspicion that
the affair was something more than a “lark.”
In this year Palmer went to London and joined Bartholomew’s Hospital. He
obtained his diploma of surgeon in August, and returned to Rugeley as a
medical practitioner. A year after he married Annie Brookes, a ward in
Chancery, the illegitimate daughter of a Colonel Brookes, of the Indian
Army, who had settled in Stafford, and had as housekeeper Mary Thornton,
Annie Brookes’s mother. By his will Colonel Brookes left Annie Brookes
(or Thornton) considerable property in money and houses, but his estate
was administered in Chancery. The guardians were opposed to the
marriage, but it took place in 1847 by order of the Court. One of the
love-letters written by Palmer and read by Serjeant Shee during the
trial appears elsewhere.
Whether Palmer intended or not at first to settle down to his
profession, he was almost without practice in two or three years after
his marriage. Horses and racing occupied him in place of medicine. He
had means without practice, and, as Rugeley is a great horse-dealing
centre, he was always familiar with men connected with horses and
racing, and they were his chosen company. In 1853 he was in pecuniary
difficulties due to his racing transactions, and was raising money on
bills with moneylenders.
Withal he kept up an appearance of great outward respectability.
Church-going sixty years ago was more than now one of its marks. In the
diary, some extracts from which will be found in the Appendices, there
are references in the year when he poisoned Cook to attendances at the
Sacrament. It is not necessary to read into this church-going anything
more specific than the radical falsity of Palmer’s character. Great
formalism and profession of rigid theological dogma were the usual
mental furniture of the middle classes of Palmer’s day. After all the
disclosures of the trial Palmer used the customary pietistic phrases,
and it was characteristic of the times that, after his conviction, his
counsel, Serjeant Shee, sent him a beautifully bound copy of the Bible.
The profession of religion, indeed, as a cloak to evil seems to have
been purposeless, as he was notorious for seductions, as well as of bad
odour in other details of his life.
One intrigue of illicit gallantry, which began probably in the lifetime
of Mrs. Palmer, and was certainly going on at the time of Walter
Palmer’s death, has a sinister connection with the death of Cook. It is
not mentioned in any account published of Palmer. Jane Burgess, a young
woman of respectable position living in Stafford in 1855, left, at the
house where she resided, a bundle of thirty-four letters written to her
by Palmer. They show that a practitioner in Stafford, chosen by Palmer,
and described by him as one “who would be silent as death,” had
performed an illegal operation. On the 13th of November the day notable
in the trial, when “Polestar,” Cook’s racehorse, won at Shrewsbury,
there is a letter to her from Palmer, which shows that she had made a
demand for money as a condition of returning his letters. He was
surprised, he wrote, to learn that she had never burned one of his
letters. He says, “I cannot do what you ask; _I should not mind giving
£30 for the whole of them_, though I am hard up at present.” Another
letter is dated the 19th November, the day on which Palmer was accused
of administering strychnia for the first time to Cook. He offers £40 “to
split the difference.” On the 21st, the day on which, in the early
morning, Cook had died, he sends the halves of eight £5 notes, and on
the 24th the remainder. The letters were probably never returned,
because the trouble threatened about Cook’s death became common talk in
Rugeley and Stafford.
Shortly after his marriage began a series of suspicious deaths which
were attributed to Palmer after investigation started into the
circumstances attending the death of Cook. An illegitimate child he had
by a Rugeley woman died after it had visited him. Mrs. Thornton, his
mother-in-law, was persuaded to live at his house, and she died within a
fortnight. Palmer acquired property from her by her death. In 1850 a Mr.
Bladon, a racing man, stayed for several days with Palmer, who owed him
£800 for bets. Bladon died in circumstances very like those attending
Cook’s death, and Palmer buried him with the haste he attempted in the
case of Cook, and he narrowly escaped a similar accusation.
In 1854 Palmer effected insurances to the amount of £13,000 on his
wife’s life. Within six months she died much as Bladon had died, and as
Cook was to die. Dr. Bamford, a medical man of eighty-two, whom Palmer
seems to have hoodwinked into serving his purposes, certified the death
of Mrs. Palmer, as he had done the death of Bladon, and as he was to
certify a year later that of Cook. Palmer drew the insurance money from
the offices concerned. They were influenced by the popular suspicions
and rumours in Rugeley and in the sporting circles Palmer frequented,
but they paid after some hesitation and suggestion of inquiry, and
Palmer was freed from the most pressing of his liabilities. His diary
contains this entry--“Sept. 29th (1854), Friday--My poor, dear Annie
expired at 10 past 1.” Nine days after this--“Oct. 8th, Sunday--At
church, Sacrament.” Nine months after his maidservant, Eliza Tharm, bore
an illegitimate child to him. Within three months of his wife’s death
Palmer, with the assistance of Pratt, the moneylender, whose claims had
been met by the insurance on Mrs. Palmer’s life, was making proposals to
various offices, amounting to £82,000, on the life of his brother
Walter. Ultimately an insurance for £13,000 was effected, and the
policy was lodged with Pratt to secure advances. After this the rest of
Palmer’s life-history is directly connected with the story of the trial.
The account we have given will suggest the, perhaps unprecedented,
interest with which the trial was anticipated throughout the Midlands,
and afterwards with what absorbed attention it was followed by all
England as well as on the Continent.
I conclude this sketch by quoting a characteristic description by Sir
James Stephen, who knew Palmer, had studied the criminal type, and
himself presided at one of the most famous trials for poisoning. He says
of Palmer--“His career supplied one of the proofs of a fact which many
kind-hearted people seem to doubt, namely, the fact that such a thing as
atrocious wickedness is consistent with good education, perfect sanity,
and everything, in a word, which deprives men of all excuse for crime.
Palmer was respectably brought up; apart from his extravagance and vice,
he might have lived comfortably enough. He was a model of physical
health and strength, and was courageous, determined, and energetic. No
one ever suggested that there was even a disposition towards madness in
him; yet he was as cruel, as treacherous, as greedy of money and
pleasure, as brutally hard-hearted and sensual a wretch as it is
possible even to imagine. If he had been the lowest and most ignorant
ruffian that ever sprang from a long line of criminal ancestors, he
could not have been worse than he was. He was by no means unlike Rush,
Thurtell, and many other persons whom I have known. The fact that the
world contains an appreciable number of wretches, who ought to be
exterminated without mercy when an opportunity occurs, is not quite so
generally understood as it ought to be--many common ways of thinking and
feeling virtually deny it.”
Leading Dates in the Palmer Trial.
1855.
August Walter Palmer, William Palmer’s brother, dies.
Payment of policy on his life for £13,000
assigned to William Palmer, and held by
Pratt, moneylender, as security, refused by
insurance office. Negotiations about it
continue up to Cook’s death.
Nov. 6. Writs issued by Pratt against Palmer and his
mother for £4000, Mrs. Palmer’s acceptance
being forged. Writs not served, for Palmer
to have opportunity of raising instalments.
“ 13. (Tuesday) Palmer and Cook go together from
Rugeley to Shrewsbury Races. Cook’s mare,
“Polestar,” wins Shrewsbury Handicap,
and he has in his possession, in consequence,
£700 or £800, and is entitled to stakes of
£350 and bets, to be paid at Tattersall’s the
Monday following, of over £1000.
“ 14. (Wednesday night) Cook ill at the Raven,
Shrewsbury, where he and Palmer stayed.
Palmer is alleged to have dosed his drink.
“ 15. Palmer’s horse, “Chicken,” beaten in his race,
and Palmer loses heavily.
Cook and Palmer return to Rugeley, and Cook
puts up at the Talbot.
“ 16. Cook dines with Palmer and Jeremiah Smith.
Cook apparently in usual health.
“ 17. (Saturday) Cook ill in bed, with the same
symptoms as at Shrewsbury.
“ 18. (Sunday) His illness continues, and during the
two days Palmer is in constant attendance,
and orders and administers food, drink, and
medicine. Dr. Bamford called in.