Love and jealousy

A CASE OF ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SUICIDE IN 1876

Early one morning in March 1876, the body of a local tradesman was found hanging from a ladder propped against a haystack in Bourne Fen. There was a police investigation followed by an inquest which revealed a tale of jealousy, deceit, attempted murder and suicide.

The dead man was William Hollis, aged 60, a plumber and glazier, but he also appeared to have lead a dissolute existence for many years, subsisting partly by poaching and partly upon the earnings of the various women with whom he had been living, and he took his own life after trying to kill his latest mistress because she had married someone else.

The inquest was held on Monday 6th March at the Anchor Inn, Eastgate, before Joseph Calthrop Esq, coroner. Robert Talbot, a journeyman tailor, told the hearing that since the previous Friday, he had been staying at a lodging house in the Eastgate run by Sarah Clark who had recently become married to an Irishman named McCarrick, although she had cohabited with Hollis for the previous 16 years. He went on:

About 9 pm on Sunday night, Hollis arrived at the lodging house and said: “Come on, Bob, I’ve got sixpence. We will go and have a drop of beer.” Mrs McCarrick was also there and he caught hold of her wrists and said: “Come on. You shall have three pennyworth as well.” He wanted to pull her out of the kitchen. My wife and some other women who were there tried to prevent him doing so. One of them, Mrs Ryan, said: “Let the woman alone” and Mrs McCarrick broke away from his grasp and went round between a table and a settle and when at the end of the settle, he struck her. She cried out: “Oh, Bill has stabbed me! He has stabbed me to the heart.” She rushed by me into the passage and I ran out of the house as soon as I could into the Woolpack [a public house in Eastgate, now demolished] and told the people there what had happened.

After Hollis struck Mrs McCarrick, I left the house and never saw him again alive. I thought he was quite sober and he seemed to know what he was doing when he made the attack. I had been with him that afternoon when he seemed sullen and hardly spoke but the previous day he had confided that he would have his revenge on her for marrying McCarrick and for deceiving him in other ways. She was supposed to have gone with him to Sleaford to take a public house and live together but although they arranged a meeting, she did not turn up. She had in the past given evidence against him that had sent him to prison. Hollis said he had forgiven her that but not for failing to meet him at Sleaford, and in other ways deceiving him. He told me that he would do for her and the Irishman too. I said that he should not have such silly notions but he appeared to be very depressed about the whole thing and did not say much. I told Mrs McCarrick what Hollis had said, but I did not tell the police because I did not think that he meant to carry out the threat.

Mary Bradford, a widow and daughter of the landlord at the Anchor Inn, said in evidence that she knew Hollis and that he lodged at their house on the two nights preceding his death. On Sunday, he did not seem comfortable, but did not complain; he did not talk to others present as he generally did. He went out several times and came in again.

Thomas Johnson, a labourer, said he lived in Eastgate and worked for Mr Samuel Shotbolt, in Bourne Fen. At about 6.30 am on Monday morning, while going to work, he was walking along the bank when he saw something that resembled a man hanging from a ladder and on investigating, found it was William Hollis. He was quite dead. Witness did not touch him but immediately informed the police.

Constable John Bell was sent to investigate and he found the body of Hollis hanging against a ladder that was standing by the side of a straw stack in Mr Charles Medwell’s field in Bourne Fen. A twisted cord was round his neck and fastened to one of the staves in the ladder, his feet touching the ground. He was quite dead, but there was warmth under the arms. His pockets contained two knives, a pair of spectacles, 10½d. in cash and a little tobacco. On Sunday night, information was received at the police station that Mrs McCarrick had been stabbed by Hollis and the officers went in search of him but could not find any traces of him until information was received from Johnson.

The case also highlighted the stigma of suicide during Victorian times and the consequent condemnation by society. After the evidence was complete, the coroner outlined the main facts of the case to the jury and the law upon the subject. He told them:

There can be no doubt that the deceased came by his death by his own hands, the only question being whether, when he hanged himself, he knew what he was about. If so, he was in law guilty of a very serious offence, namely, of the murder of himself, and in the event of that being your opinion it will be your duty, however painful it might be, to return a verdict of felo de se [suicide]. If, on the other hand, you are satisfied that the deceased was in an unsound state of mind at the time he destroyed himself, you must find a verdict of temporary insanity; but if you conscientiously come to the conclusion that there is not sufficient evidence to show what was the state of deceased’s mind at the time, it is open to you to give a verdict to that effect.

The jury had a short consultation and then, through their foreman, Mr William Dales Todd, expressed their regrets that there seemed to be no course open to them but to return a verdict of felo de se.

The coroner then issued his authority for the interment of the body according to law, which required that the burial should take place within 24 hours of the finding of the verdict, between the hours of 9 and 12 at night and without any of the rites of Christian burial. The interment took place at about 11 o’clock the same night in the presence of a large number of persons at the far end of the cemetery, upon the unconsecrated ground, near to where stillborn children were buried.

The wounds sustained by Mrs McCarrick were said to have been inflicted by a pointed instrument with two sharp edges which penetrated her dress, chemise and stays, making an incised wound or stab about an inch and a half in length and two or three inches in depth just under the left breast. Dr James Watson Burdwood, who was attending her, said that he had first thought the wounds to be of a serious nature but the victim was progressing favourably and likely to recover.

NOTE: Compiled from a news report in the Stamford Mercury, Friday 10th March 1876.